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psychologist vol 29 no 2
february 2016 www.thepsychologist.org.uk
Psychology – a path to peace? We seek alternatives to military action against ‘extremism’
news 94 careers 142 reviews 148 looking back 154
the ascension of parent-offspring ties 114 from riots to crowd safety 120 interview: Jon Kabat-Zinn 124 researching loyalist communities 126
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Can psychology find a path to peace? 108 As the UK’s Parliament voted to allow bombing in Syria, we asked – are there evidence-based ways to resolve this conflict?
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The ascension of parent–offspring ties 114 How are bonds between parents and their grown-up children changing, and what impact do they have? Karen Fingerman looks at the evidence. 108 Impact: From riots to crowd safety 120 In the first of an occasional series, John Drury describes his pathway to impact
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New voices: Researching loyalist communities Patrick Flack outlines his research in Northern Ireland
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January 2016 issue 54,614 dispatched Printed by Warners Midlands plc on 100 per cent recycled paper. Please re-use or recycle.
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new year honours; All in the Mind awards; an evening of heaven and hell to mark a decade of the Research Digest blog; university psychology societies; Psychology4Graduates; the annual Edge question; and more
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ISSN 0952-8229 © Copyright for all published material is held by the British Psychological Society unless specifically stated otherwise. As the Society is a party to the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) agreement, articles in The Psychologist may be copied by libraries and other organisations under the terms of their own CLA licences (www.cla.co.uk). Permission must be obtained from the British Psychological Society for any other use beyond fair dealing authorised by copyright legislation. For further information about copyright and obtaining permissions, e-mail permissions@bps.org.uk. The publishers have endeavoured to trace the copyright holders of all illustrations. If we have unwittingly infringed copyright, we will be pleased, on being satisfied as to the owner’s title, to pay an appropriate fee.
The Psychologist is the monthly publication of The British Psychological Society. It provides a forum for communication, discussion and controversy among all members of the Society, and aims to fulfil the main object of the Royal Charter, ‘to promote the advancement and diffusion of a knowledge of psychology pure and applied’.
Managing Editor Jon Sutton Assistant Editor Peter Dillon-Hooper Production Mike Thompson
Journalist Ella Rhodes Editorial Assistant Debbie Gordon Research Digest Christian Jarrett (editor), Alex Fradera
Associate Editors Articles Michael Burnett, Paul Curran, Harriet Gross, Rebecca Knibb, Adrian Needs, Paul Redford, Sophie Scott, Mark Wetherell, Jill Wilkinson Conferences Alana James History of Psychology Matt Connolly Interviews Gail Kinman Reviews Kate Johnstone Viewpoints Catherine Loveday International panel Vaughan Bell, Uta Frith, Alex Haslam, Elizabeth Loftus
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the issue ...debates letters the reality of life and death decisions; President’s Letter; attachment; antibiotics; storms and social capital; the Human Genome Project; obituaries; and more
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...digests what’s it like to meet the man who murdered your brother?; life passions; and more, in the latest from our Research Digest (see www.bps.org.uk/digest)
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...meets news 5 minutes with Noreen Tehrani, on crisis and trauma
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interview Edo Shonin talks with Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of mindfulness-based stress reduction
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careers 142 we talk to Nick Maguire, (University of Southampton), and Isabelle Cullis describes the many faces of working with visible difference
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one on one with Susan Hallam, Professor of Education and Music Psychology at the Institute of Education
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...reviews A memoir of hunger and hope; a Little Box of Big Questions; How to Be a Researcher; Ruby Wax’s Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled (with extract); and more 148
There’s an expectation – from the funding framework, from the public, from psychologists themselves – that our discipline should make a difference. It’s all about ‘impact’. What can The Psychologist do to reflect and facilitate this? This month, I can point you to two attempts. On p.108, a discussion special considers if we are resigned to remaining quiet as the bombs fall in Syria or elsewhere, or whether psychologists can find a path to peace. On p.120, we hear from John Drury about his work, featured in the Society’s ‘impact portal’ (www.bps.org.uk/impact). The print/online integration is central to our own quest for ‘impact’: the discussion special began online and will hopefully continue there. Please do consider writing for us as one path to impact: you can reach more than 50,000 Society members, and a wider audience via our website and social media. It’s a great time to contribute: see thepsychologist.bps.org.uk for guidance. And keep an eye out for our app: hopefully due in February! Follow us @psychmag for updates. Dr Jon Sutton Managing Editor
...looks back Historical sex object – or undiscovered genius? 154 John Launer challenges the image of Sabina Spielrein principally as Carl Jung’s mistress: was she one of the most innovative thinkers in 20th-century psychology? 154
The Psychologist and Digest Editorial Advisory Committee Catherine Loveday (Chair), Emma Beard, Phil Banyard, Olivia Craig, Helen Galliard, Harriet Gross, Rowena Hill, Stephen McGlynn, Peter Olusoga, Peter Wright
3 years ago Go to www.thepsychologist.org.uk for our archive, including Robert Sternberg on the stages of his quest to understand what bonds us together
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Big picture centre-page pull-out Imagining the future before breakfast: image/words by Jan Cosgrave and Dalena Van Heugten (University of Oxford)
NEWS
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Three new dames and an OBE on New Year list Three leading psychologists have been awarded damehoods and one an OBE in the New Year Honours list. They have been recognised for work in cancer services, public health, clinical psychology and for helping those living with an altered appearance. Professor Dame Lesley Fallowfield, Director of Sussex Health Outcomes Research & Education in Cancer (SHORE-C) (University of Sussex), the professor of psycho-oncology to be awarded a damehood, expressed her
Professor Dame Lesley Fallowfield
delight and surprise at the honour. She told The Psychologist: ‘It is personally satisfying but more importantly a worthy and fitting tribute to all the amazing patients with cancer who have contributed to the research done by my team SHORE-C at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. I have no idea who were the generous people who felt motivated to nominate me, but I’d like to thank them and the doctors and nurses I’ve been privileged to work with over the years.’ Til Wykes, Vice Dean of Psychology and Systems Services and Professor of Clinical Psychology and Rehabilitation at King’s College London, was awarded her damehood for services to clinical psychology. She said she was proud to be able to include service users in her research at the KCL Service User
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Research Enterprise, medical, research and pointed out how Whitehead became generous these people interested in taking had been with their time. a more wholeShe added: ‘The person approach honour is important. and began work I come from workinglooking at class beginnings, not populations and privately educated, not wider implications an Oxbridge graduate affecting people’s and not a man, which health. In the 1980s The Times identified as Whitehead was the characteristics of involved in most receiving honours. updating the Black So this is also an award Report – a seminal for women in science. review of health But it is also one of the inequalities in the honours for contributions UK which the Tory to mental health, government chose bringing it to the not to act on. This, Professor Dame Til Wykes attention of the public and a similar response and fighting stigma.’ to the Whitehead But, Wykes said, there was still Report, only led to the documents much to achieve in terms of finding achieving worldwide attention and better treatments, reducing stigma and becoming a Penguin non-fiction including service users and their families bestseller (Inequalities in Health). in services and research. ‘We now await Along with colleague Göran the Mental Health Taskforce and hope Dahlgren, Whitehead also developed the that the research section is not watered widely cited and influential Dahlgren– down and that the government will take Whitehead model to illustrate the mental health research priorities determinants of health. She told The seriously by backing them with hard Psychologist: ‘When I found out I was on cash. That will be my next campaign the list my initial reaction was disbelief and I hope many others will join me.’ followed by being overwhelmed and Professor Dame Margaret Whitehead humbled. But I’ve had a wonderful was given her DBE for her work in response from people and it’s slowly public health. Her fascinating career has sinking in.’ involved research on social and health In her future work, Whitehead said, inequalities and as well as being Head she is hoping to develop ways of of the Department of Public Health and evaluating population-wide policies that Policy, Institute of tackle working Psychology, Health and living and Society at the conditions. She University of added: ‘The Liverpool. She University of also works for Liverpool is very the World Health supportive of Organization as public health, head of the and the city of Collaborating Liverpool as a Centre for Policy whole has a long Research on and proud the Social tradition of action Determinants on public health. of Health. The whole context After an initial of the place is very degree in biology nurturing for these Professor Dame Margaret Whitehead and experience in ideas.’
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Awarded an OBE was Professor Nichola Rumsey, Co-Director of the Centre for Appearance Research (CAR) which she founded at the University of the West of England in 1992. The centre has since grown to become the world’s largest research group focusing on the role of appearance and body image in people’s lives (see tinyurl.com/visidiff). Rumsey has built an international reputation for her research in the field, which started with the completion of her PhD Psychological Problems Associated with Facial Disfigurement in 1983. Since then she has attracted more than £7 million funding to support research on appearance. She also worked as the British Psychological Society’s consultant to the Department of Health from 2004 to 2010, is an Honorary Life Member of the South African Burns Society, and an Honorary Life Member of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons. She said she was honoured and humbled to receive the award, and added: ‘In a world ever more preoccupied with appearance, living with disfigurement can present significant challenges. The contributions of the Centre for Appearance Research in addressing the needs of affected people and their families have been achieved by a team of enthusiastic, hard-working and committed researchers over the past 25 years.’ Rumsey added that she felt privileged and proud to have played Professor Nichola a part in the Rumsey OBE team since its beginnings and added: ‘UWE has encouraged CAR to grow and flourish since the establishment of the Centre in 1992. The enthusiasm for CAR’s work and pride in the Centre’s accomplishments have been crucial to its success.’ Paul Farmer, Chief Executive of Mind, was also named a CBE for services to mental health; and Paul Boyle, former Chief Executive of the ESRC and current Vice Chancellor at the University of Leicester was named a CBE for services to social science. ER
Above and beyond BBC Radio 4’s All in the Mind is encouraging nominations of particularly inspirational individuals, groups and professionals for its 2016 awards. Its presenter Claudia Hammond spoke to The Psychologist about the 2014 winners, the difficulty of judging this type of award, and the incredible stories of individual support she has encountered throughout the process. The All in the Mind Awards are split into three categories honouring an individual, professional and group seen as outstanding in supporting people with mental health difficulties. Among the previous winners were Brighton’s MindOut, a service run by and for the LGBTQ community, and Steve McDonagh who was nominated by his employee Andrew King for support given to him both in and out of the workplace. Since the 2014 awards both the three winners and six finalists have continued their work and done even more to support others. Maya, who nominated her mother in the individual category for support she received in her battle with anorexia writes a blog sharing her experiences and said anyone thinking about nominating someone should do it, and added: ‘I didn’t think for a minute that we’d be at the award ceremony. It’s a nice way to say thank you and to recognise what she [Mum] has done for me. It also gives other people the opportunity to recognise it, Mum’s friends are always saying how kind she is. It’s a good time to step back and say that you’ve done something good.’
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Hammond said while judging the first set of awards many people stood out, but even small acts of kindness seen by people with mental health problems made a massive difference to their lives, she said: ‘One person said when she was going through depression her friend left a cup of tea outside her door every morning, even on those days she couldn’t get out of bed to drink it she really appreciated the fact her friend never gave up on her. That’s one thing that really stands out – people’s persistence in trying to help.’ Though judging these awards may seem like a near-impossible task, Hammond said the stories she has encountered have reassured her of the amazing lengths humans will go to in supporting each other. She added: ‘It’s really hard, you don’t want anyone to be the “winner” as such. We try to include all of the nine shortlisted finalists and emphasise the fact that both the nominee and the person who put them forward are winners
as a pair. It’s not about people with mental health problems being passive and not helping themselves – it’s about rewarding both parties.’ Those nominated, Hammond said, show incredible humility: ‘All the nominees said their actions are something anyone would do, which is the same thing heroes always say. But the truth is not everyone would act as they do in these situations – they go above and beyond.’ Author Matt Haig, Kevan Jones MP, Marion Janner, founder of Star Wards, and clinical psychologist Linda Blair will join Hammond on the judging panel. They will be looking for examples of support that showed greater than expected levels of compassion, understanding or practical assistance. ER I The deadline for nominations is midnight on 31 January 2016 – see tinyurl.com/aitmaward16. Awards will be announced during a ceremony at the Wellcome Collection in London on 27 June 2016
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A decade of delights For a decade, the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest blog has been sharing the latest peer-reviewed research with an ever-growing, international audience. In its birthday year it pushed 900,000 page views in a month and topped the iTunes social sciences podcast chart with ‘PsychCrunch’. This event in London (supported by Psychology Press) gathered 130 of the finest minds, including the researchers and bloggers who have conducted and shared much of that work, to celebrate and to discuss ‘Psychology Heaven and Hell’. Opening the evening, Dr Jon Sutton (Managing Editor) explained that he and the Digest Editor Dr Christian Jarrett had wanted to showcase the wonderful diversity of the psychology research featured on the blog over the years, with something that is fundamental to us as human beings. ‘Tonight is not about religious concepts of heaven and hell, it’s about one story, the oldest: light versus dark.’ Beyond the individual, the night was also about our discipline. Recent years have seen an increasing internal struggle, with psychology shining a selfcritical light on its own theory, research and practice. Research fraud and involvement in torture have dragged our beloved subject towards hell; many psychologists, some of them in the assembled audience, have tried to pull us back towards the light via a self-critical approach to our methods and ways of reporting our findings. ‘But perhaps we’re still liable to temptation, seduction, by alluring results and conclusions,’ Sutton said. ‘It’s an uneasy time for psychology. It seems to me that not a week passes without a headline questioning whether we can really trust what we find.’ After describing the richly layered personal traits that made the evening’s guest speakers instant choices, Sutton introduced Dr Christian Jarrett. ‘Just look at that angelic face! But then, in the words of the film The Usual Suspects, “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world he didn’t exist”.’ The evening was to follow the structure of the thousands of journal articles Jarrett has digested over the years, with him picking up the ‘Method’ of being a science writer. He began with a ‘confession’ – his envy of the fantastic Mind Hacks had inspired him 10 years ago to turn the Research Digest e-mail newsletter (launched in 2003) into a blog. Moving on to his own heaven and hell, he gave cautionary tales of Digest items going all
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round the world’s media. Jarrett’s own ‘twist’ can end up being the hook for the coverage: ‘Suddenly my imagination becomes scientific fact!’ His own ‘hell’ was internet trolls; ‘heaven’ the dedication and ingenuity of psychology researchers. ‘I gave up conducting psychology research because it is frankly too difficult: that’s why I write about it instead! So I would like to pay tribute to psychological scientists – without them there wouldn’t be a Research Digest.’ One of those psychologists, Professor Andy Field (University of Sussex), took the baton to discuss ‘Results: Is Psychology Damned to Hell?’ Null hypothesis significance testing came under fire as Field’s personal hell: ‘It tells us nothing about importance because p depends upon sample size; it provides no evidence about the null (or alternative) hypothesis; and it encourages all-ornothing thinking’ (nicely illustrated by the despair of researchers seeing ‘p > .05’ results churning out of SPSS). ‘Psychology heaven, in terms of getting a professorship, is doing lots of really large studies – you’ll get significant effects regardless of the actual importance of what you’re looking at’. Professor Field also pointed to other assumptions about our data that should, but very rarely do, lead to the adoption of robust methods of analysis. Using Ioannidis’ idea of ‘Positive Predictive Value’ – the post-study probability that a significant finding reflects a true relationship – Field then showed that psychology is vulnerable to ‘dodgy’ findings. A number of exploratory effects are often tested; research designs usually have considerable flexibility, in that there are often a number of different methods that can be used to measure an effect; sample sizes and effect sizes are often small; research may well be on ‘hot topics’; and academic prejudices can play a part. Replication is clearly key to trustworthy science, but Field questioned whether researchers’ attitudes around this are currently rather self-serving and defensive. So is psychology damned to hell? Professor Uta Frith (University College London) looked to reassure in a ‘Discussion’ that would ‘integrate, interpret, imagine and improve’. Replication was again a key focus: ‘We all know that the purpose of running an experiment is to discover what
experiment you should have done!’ In fact, finding the unexpected is Professor Frith’s idea of psychology heaven. Quoting William Blake’s ‘The Marriage of Heaven and Hell’, she said ‘Without Contraries is no progression’. A cautionary proverb for psychologists was perhaps there in Blake’s line, ‘I have always found that Angels have the vanity to speak of themselves as the only wise; this they do with a confident insolence sprouting from systematic reasoning.’ The key, Professor Frith said, is to always ask ‘Why?’ when you are conducting a replication – a failed attempt to replicate can still push our understanding forward. Using examples from the Research Digest, Professor Frith gave ‘heavenly’ examples of when folk psychology appeared to be overturned. ‘Consigned to hell’ were ‘blaming parents’, ‘ignoring genetic evidence’, ‘conducting fMRI studies just because you can’, and ‘atheoretical research which is just fishing’. Professor Frith concluded with a call for more ‘slow science’ (‘test more subjects, do more trials, be more careful’), and for science communication to educate and build trust in psychology. Returning one last time to the ‘heaven and hell’ theme, she advised: ‘We need to always see two sides – this is the way to understand the mind… We need the big picture, and we need to go underneath into deep thought.’ Dr Sutton concluded by thanking the assembled audience for helping the Research Digest to grow over the years, and encouraging others to blog: ‘it is important to engage with the public and communicate science, so give it a go!’ I Visit the Research Digest blog www.bps.org.uk/digest and join 37,000 subscribers to the free fortnightly e-mail http://digest.bps.org.uk/p/ouremail.html. See also our preview of the event https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/ psychology-heaven-and-hell which includes links to the speakers and to more ‘heavenly’ and ‘hellish’ psychology. Follow @ResearchDigest on Twitter.
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Call to join societies network University psychology societies may be an overlooked, yet excellent place for breeding ideas, peer-support and valuable experiences for the future. One head of such a society is hoping to form a network of similar groups across the UK. The President of the University of Derby’s psychology society, Keith Flint, said he has seen the group move from strength to strength during its first year of existence and has since become the second largest society at the university. Given that success, he is hoping to form a network of all psychology societies across all the UK universities. Flint told The Psychologist that the Derby society runs
workshops for its members to help them through university and expand their skill sets, including courses in public speaking, networking and revision techniques. He added: ‘We’ve also managed to arrange for members to visit Broadmoor Hospital. We’ll be given a tour of the grounds, speak to members of staff, hear from psychologists that work there and find out what it’s like to work there.’ Despite being set to graduate this year, Flint is hoping to form this national network of psychology societies before that time. He said: ‘We want to unite all psychology students across the country to give students more opportunities and experiences both during their time at
university and when they graduate.’ As well as helping members to meet like-minded individuals, this large network could even lead to eventual working relationships in research or other areas of the discipline, Flint said. On a practical level, he added, it would allow students who wanted to go on to postgraduate studies at other institutions to speak to students at those universities to find out what their studying experiences were like. Flint, who is hoping to pursue postgraduate study in psychology and eventually a career in the area, said he thought societies like this encourage students to actively pursue and interest in the
topic, which in turn helps their career progression. He added: ‘University psychology societies consist of the next generation of psychologists, some of whom may one day make a massive breakthrough in the field of psychology and advance the subject into the future. Which is why these societies are so important, not only to the students in them but also to the area of psychology as a whole.’ ER I If you run or are a member of a university-based psychology society and would like to join Flint’s network e-mail him on psychology.soc@udsu.org.uk. And why not share with us the contribution your psychology society makes – e-mail psychologist@bps.org.uk or tweet us @psychmag.
PSYCHOLOGIST TO HEAD CIPD The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development have announced Professor Sir Cary Cooper CBE as their new President. The Board of the CIPD, the professional body for human resources and people development, nominated Sir Cary, an Honorary Fellow of the BPS, for the role to support its mission to champion better work and working lives by promoting the importance of good people management and development. Professor Cooper, who will hold the presidency for an initial tenure of three years, commented: ‘The fast changing nature of work means there’s never been a more crucial time for organisations to put wellbeing at the heart of their culture. The CIPD has long championed how employee wellbeing is key to building high-performing, productive workplaces, and I’m delighted to be given the chance to work with the CIPD and its members to move this important agenda forward. Understanding the future of work and the workplace and the role of the HR and L&D professions is key to the strategic agenda for the CIPD, and I look forward to engaging in this wider debate with the CIPD and the communities it supports and engages with.’ JS I To read more about Professor Sir Cary Cooper, see http://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume28/november-2015/be-brave-psychology-needs-you and http://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume23/edition-9/one-one-cary-cooper
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5 minutes with‌ Dr Noreen Tehrani Noreen Tehrani, the Chair Elect of the British Psychological Society’s Crisis, Disaster and Trauma Psychology Section (launched just over a year ago) is passionate about making sure that people and organisations exposed to traumatic events get the best possible guidance, support and interventions to help them understand how traumatic events affect communities, organisations and individuals. Whilst a small minority of people exposed to traumatic incidents develop post-trauma disorders, the provision of a supportive initial response can reduce distress and provide opportunities to build future resilience and post-trauma growth. What sparked your interest in trauma? I joined the Post Office in 1991 as an occupational health psychologist. On the first week I had to deal with a kidnapping of the family of a postal worker taken hostage by armed raiders. It then became apparent that this was not particularly unusual in the Post Office, so my first task was to design and implement a programme of trauma support to help employees deal with armed raids, violent attacks, dog bites and other traumatic incidents. At that time there was very little written about trauma in organisations.
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I found papers by Atle Dyregrov and Jeff Mitchell from which I created and introduced an organisational programme of trauma support. What I found particularly rewarding was the speed with which early trauma interventions reduced trauma symptoms. Has the scientific approach to trauma changed in recent years? The rapid advances in our understanding of the biological basis of trauma has been highly influential in increasing our understanding of the nature of traumatic stress. The discovery that trauma changes the operation of the neuro-endocrine system helped in the understanding of hyperarousal symptoms. Neuroimaging has started to map the brain structures and pathways involved in trauma responses. This has provided an insight into many trauma responses, including showing how changes to the corpus callosum and prefrontal cortex of traumatised children predicts developmental problems. Over the past 10 years there has been a rapid increase in trauma interventions, leading to robust debate on the nature of evidence. The role of randomised controlled trials and the place of other forms of evidence is being examined, with the growing recognition of the importance of looking for clinically significant findings when working with trauma. Is there a risk that psychologists can do more harm than good tackling trauma? In my experience there are two kinds of harm caused by psychologists working with traumatised clients. The first is by omission where a lack of recognition of the presence of the trauma results in the psychologist adopting an ineffective therapeutic model. Typically, clients become disillusioned when they see no reduction in their symptoms and as a result may refuse appropriate treatments when offered. The second type of harm occurs when the psychologist fails to follow one or more of the fundamental rules of working with traumatised clients, which include: I recognising of the importance of social support;
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providing for psycho-education; giving opportunities to make sense of the trauma story; building self-calming skills; showing respect and sensitivity to personal, cultural and social differences; and offering ongoing support.
Why are you particularly interested in secondary trauma? Most of my work is in organisations, some of my clients are directly involved in dealing with disasters or exposed to serious physical or psychological abuse. However, many experience their trauma through engaging with primary victims of trauma as a rescuer, paramedic, law enforcer, advocate, teacher or humanitarian worker. The development of secondary trauma or compassion fatigue through vicarious experience is well established and requires organisations where there is a high level of risk of traumatic exposure to identify those workers particularly vulnerable. There is a need to ensure they are screened, educated and supported in developing essential resilience capacities. Psychologists working with trauma are also vulnerable, and I have recently contributed a chapter to a book on supervision for trauma psychologists, which sets out what good trauma supervision involves. What are your hopes for the Crisis, Disaster and Trauma Psychology Section? As a very new and highly ambitious section of the BPS we would like to encourage psychologists from other Divisions and Sections to work with us to provide answers to some of the most difficult questions that the world faces today including: How can we support traumatised refugees and victims of war.? Which early trauma interventions work best? What can we do to help victims of historic child abuse? Should psychologists be part of emergency planning? Is EMDR better than TF-CBT in treating trauma? We cannot solve these problems on our own, so we decided to offer a series of trauma workshops as part of the professional development programme in the hope that others would join us to take part in this important work – see www.bps.org.uk/events/introductiontrauma.
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Diverse and colourful Ella Rhodes reports from the annual Psychology4Graduates event organised by the BPS At Friends House in London recent or near-graduates of psychology came to hear talks about the many, varied and sometimes surprising routes into working in the field. The seven excellent speakers inspired the audience with tales of a Jedi mother, rejecting a yuppie lifestyle in favour of helping others and how fashion psychology could impact society. James Randall-James, co-chair of the British Psychological Society’s Division of Clinical Psychology’s Pre-Qualifications Group, and fellow member of the group Steph Minchin, both University of Hertfordshire clinical psychology PhD students, gave a fascinating talk on the best ways into the field as well as general careers advice. They pointed out the areas in which clinical psychologists may work and the sorts of problems they focus on in therapy and conversations with clients. They spoke about the varied ways in which clients are assessed, including clinical interviews, psychometric tests, neurocognitive tests and clinical observations, as well as the various interventions in which they are trained. Throughout the talk they told the audience of their personal career paths and emphasised the importance for those wishing to embark on a career in clinical psychology to gain as much experience in their chosen area as possible before applying to a PhD course. Psychologist, organisational consultant, executive coach and former NBA basketball player John Amaechi OBE [see https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/way-we-are-all-either-jedi-orsith], held the rapt audience with his wonderful talk about his route into psychology with an atmospheric portrait of his mother. He said as a young boy he would accompany his mother, who worked as a GP, on house visits. He said of these visits to grieving relatives or those with very sick family members: ‘People would yell and cry, but she would let them talk and say what they needed to say and would cut through the clutter in the air… Suddenly the tension would drop and although they knew everything was not going to be OK they felt like they could cope in that moment, and I found that amazing.’ After seeing the first Star Wars film and witnessing Obi-Wan Kenobi’s way with people, he came to the sudden realisation that his own mother might just be a Jedi. He added: ‘What brought me to psychology was seeing the impact that, what I can now see as mindful attention and purposeful focus, can have.’ Amaechi later began to study psychology while playing basketball in San Diego and went on to do a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy. He now runs Amaechi Performance Systems, working with some of the top businesses in the world. Though Amaechi said his own relationship with academic research had been ‘tenuous’ so far, he emphasised that future research needs to capture the true diversity of the world and not leave important questions unasked. In giving the gathered graduates tips for success, which he said felt ‘far too bold’, he stressed the need to question the status quo, and not simply accept well-established ways of working. Amaechi also drew attention to the value of mindfulness in the workplace – particularly from a leadership point of view. He said the world was full of disproportionately powerful people and added one of the most important roles he had was to make these giants of industry realise they are giants, which will hopefully lead them to be more aware of the potential harm they can commit – even unintentionally – and the potential good they can do with that power.
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Prolific psychology writer Rob Yeung then gave a great general talk about how psychology graduates can stand out in a competitive environment. He emphasised the importance of giving an appearance of confidence, competence and charisma during interviews and in working life as a whole. Yeung bravely used his own mistakes in the working world as a basis for his advice – he pointed out that after working in a large management consultancy he moved to a smaller firm and immediately tried to enforce all he had learned at this larger business on the smaller one. This, needless to say, did not go down very well with his new employers. He said: ‘When you’re in a new position, focus on fitting in and being helpful.’ He then gave some examples of research into job interviews to help graduates in their job hunting and emphasised the importance of having composure and speaking fluently, suggesting that graduates use the ‘three Ps’ before an interview: prepare, practice and perform. He also gave a handy tip for a quick fix to boosting confidence – he said some research had found that if interviewees spent five minutes writing about a time they felt they had power and influence, they performed better at mock job interviews. George Kitsaras, the BPS’s 50,000th member, recently started a job as an Assistant Psychologist for Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Trust. He spoke about his career path moving from Greece to study for a MSc in clinical psychology at the University of Reading. Kitsaras gave a great summary of his role in Birmingham on a medium-secure men’s unit and outlined some of the benefits of graduate BPS membership. He advised the graduates who wanted to pursue clinical psychology careers that they should be prepared for a potentially long road to qualification and should aim to get as much work experience as possible in the field. Dr Carolyn Mair was next to speak about her extremely varied career path, which now sees her leading the only course in the world that looks into the role of psychology in fashion [see tinyurl.com/jfnqzkc]. Mair’s first role was as a graphic designer and she came to psychology in her late 30s, completing a degree in psychology and computing at Bournemouth and later an MSc at Portsmouth. Her new course at the London School of Fashion looks at how psychology impacts the fashion industry and the people who buy into the industry. She said she hopes that her students can take away a greater understanding of psychology from the course and apply this to the dilemmas facing the world of fashion, including questions around eating disorders and sustainability. ‘It’s not about a person’s ability to cite a certain paper but it’s much more about the bigger picture and looking at, and tackling, the issues that are out there. That’s why psychology degrees are so valuable – they give you the skills to contribute to society.’ Finally, BPS President Jamie Hacker Hughes spoke about his extraordinary career path from wannabe maxillofacial surgeon to army officer, high-flying IT salesman and marketing director, to taking a 90 per cent salary drop to become a psychiatric nursing assistant at the Maudsley Hospital. After qualifying as a clinical psychologist he was appointed Head of Defence Clinical Psychology in 2007 and the following year became Defence Consultant Advisor in Psychology to the MoD. All in all, a day that was as diverse and colourful as the discipline it was encouraging the audience to enter. Well worth keeping an eye out for next year’s event. ER
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Psychology on the edge Online magazine The Edge has again drawn on a diverse range of the world’s sharpest minds to answer its annual question, this year: ‘What do you consider the most interesting recent [science] news? And what makes it important?’ We have drawn together some of the most interesting and topical answers given by psychologists.
Psychology in crisis Perhaps unsurprisingly many psychologists chose the reproducibility crisis, and other concerns around the practices of some academics and journals in psychology, as their choice for the most interesting recent news in science. Psychology researcher and author Judith Rich Harris pointed to papers published in 2011 and 2012 that raised some initial doubts over findings in psychology – both published in Psychological Science. What Harris described as ‘the final punch’ for the topic came last year when Science published work finding only 36 per cent of almost 100 studies in the top three psychology journals could be replicated. She suggested two reasons for the decline of truth in scientific research, writing: ‘First, research is no longer something people do for fun, because they’re curious. It has become something that people are required to do if they want a career in the academic world… People are doing research for the wrong reasons: not to satisfy their curiosity but to satisfy their ambitions.’ She suggests people should not be rewarded on the basis of how much they publish. Second, Harris suggested the vetting of research papers had also gone awry and wrote: ‘I propose that this job [vetting
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papers] should be performed by paid experts – accredited specialists in the analysis of research. Perhaps this could provide an alternative path into academia for people who don’t particularly enjoy the nitty-gritty of doing research but who love ferreting out the flaws and virtues in the research of others.’ Professor of Psychology at Yale University, Paul Bloom, also touched on the topic and said some of the most interesting science news had been about science itself, referring to psychology as ‘patient zero’ with its well-publicised cases of fraud and concerns around psychology experiments and analyses of results. He said that although there was a lot to complain about regarding how this story was handled by the mainstream media, with psychology being singled out where a problem exists in other fields, it was still a significant story and good could come of it. He concluded: ‘A serious public discussion of what scientists are doing wrong and how they can do better will not only lead to better science, it will help advance scientific understanding more generally.’ Ellen Winner, a psychologist at Boston College, said despite the ‘jarring’ findings in the Science paper mentioned above, the implications on psychological science would result in better practices in journals and universities. She pointed to the fact that many journals will now not accept single studies with small sample sizes and p values just below .05. She added: ‘Because new policies will result in fewer publications per researcher, universities will have to change their hiring, tenure and rewards systems, and granting and award-giving agencies will have to do so
too. We will need to stop the lazy practice of counting publications and citations and instead read critically for quality.’ Winner concluded that, although a sea change takes time, it would result in the reporting of findings that are more likely to be true rather than urban myths, which in turn would lead to a better reputation for the field and a better understanding of human nature.
The rise of interdisciplinary approaches and big data Moving away from the somewhat marred past of psychology and onto a seemingly, cautiously bright future from Adam Alter, Assistant Professor of Marketing at Stern School of Business (New York University). He pointed to the huge rise in interdisciplinary research as some of the most interesting science news recently. Alter wrote that while social scientists, particularly psychologists, used to examine individuals through a zoom lens, with the growth of academics from varied fields working together, we are garnering an increasingly ‘wide-angle lens’ view of the world. He wrote that another benefit of this type of project was encouraging academics to adopt a wider view within their own fields and added: ‘Many prominent papers published this year [2015] also include brain imaging data (a telephoto zoom lens), and data from social media sites and large scale economic panels (wide-angle lenses).’ Alter also points to researchers who have begun to complement ‘big data’ analyses with ‘zoomed-in’ physiological measures such as eye tracking and brain imaging analyses. He concluded: ‘The big
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news here is not just that scientists are borrowing from other disciplines, but also that their borrowing has turned over richer, broader answers to a growing range of scientific questions.’
Why we should fear the fear of unlikely threats Professor of Psychology David G. Myers (Hope College) and his German colleague Gerd Gigerenzer (see December 2015 issue) both gave answers around a similar theme – how our unwarranted fears of terrorism when compared with more immediate threats, can be far more damaging than we might first expect. Myers wrote that recent surveys have shown we are much less fearful of greater, everyday threats, than of terrorism. He asked why we fear flying when the drive to the airport is the most dangerous part of a trip. He wrote: ‘Underlying our exaggerated fears is the “availability heuristic”: We fear what’s readily available in memory. Vivid, cognitively available images… distort our judgements of risk.’ Myers added that we hardly notice the half-million children who quietly die from rotavirus per year: ‘Bill Gates once
observed – the equivalent of four 747s full of children every day.’ Myers pointed out that ‘news-fed, cognitively available images’ make us overly fearful of tiny risks – which may go some way to explaining why an estimated $500 million is spent per U.S. terrorist death, compared to $10,000 per cancer death. He concluded, chillingly, with a quote from Media researcher George Gerbner’s 1981 words to a congressional subcommittee: ‘Fearful people are more dependent, more easily manipulated and controlled, more susceptible to deceptively simple, strong, tough measures and hard-line postures.’ Gigerenzer, Director of the Center for Adaptive Behaviour and Cognition (Max Planck Institute for Human Development) similarly pointed to statistics that each year more Americans die from lightning than terrorism, and increasingly are more likely to die from preventable medical errors in hospitals – unnecessary deaths have risen from an estimated 98,000 in 1999 to 440,000 annually. He explained this fear of what, in all likelihood, will not kill us: ‘It is called a fear of dread risks. This fear is elicited by a situation in which many people die
within a short time.’ He pointed to striking figures that following 9/11 many Americans avoided flying and drove their cars instead resulting in around 1600 deaths from car accidents – more than the number killed the four hijacked planes. Gigerenzer referred to this as Osama Bin Laden’s second strike and wrote: ‘Although billions have been poured into Homeland Security and similar institutions to prevent the first strike of terrorists, almost no funding has been provided to prevent the second strike.’ He concluded that making the public more aware of how terrorists exploit people’s fears could save lives and added: ‘It could also open people’s eyes to the fact that some politicians and other interest groups work on keeping our dread risk fear aflame to nudge us into accepting personal surveillance and restriction of our democratic liberties.’ Many other psychologists contributed, including Steven Pinker, Tania Lombrozo, John Tooby, Lisa Feldman Barrett, Bruce Hood, Nicholas Humphrey, Kurt Gray, June Gruber, Abigail Marsh and Diana Deutsch (see http://edge.org/annualquestions). ER
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What is it like to meet the man who murdered your brother? Traditionally, the criminal justice system has been so focused on ensuring that offenders are suitably punished that the interests and needs of victims are often overlooked. Nowhere is this more of an issue than in murder cases, where the relatives and friends of the victims are dragged through traumatic retellings of the crime. One approach that seeks to give relatives and friends (known as ‘co-victims’) a voice, and to help address their suffering, is known as ‘restorative justice’ and it involves victims (or, in the case of a murder, co-victims) meeting face to face with the offender. While restorative justice is becoming an increasingly common practice, psychologically informed research into its effects is relatively rare. Indeed, this case study is the first ever investigation into the effects of restorative justice on the relatives of a murder victim (specifically, two sisters of a young man who was murdered). John (names have been changed), a bar manager in London, was murdered at the age of 30 by two men he’d invited back to his flat one night after work. One of the men, Michael, is serving a life sentence for strangling John; the other aggressor had his sentence reduced to manslaughter on appeal after claiming to have a diagnosis of Asperger’s. Fifteen years later, two of John’s sisters accepted an invitation to take part in a restorative justice plan for them to meet Michael. They had both suffered terribly since losing their brother: one sister, Janet, was diagnosed with clinical depression and missed 18 months of work; the other, Barbara, developed an alcohol problem and attempted to take her own life. Mark Walters, the author of the case study, explains that these long-term difficulties are common among the co-victims of murders. Often, as was the case In British Journal of Criminology with Barbara who compulsively rewatched a documentary about her brother’s murder, they become ‘stuck in a cycle of re-living incoherent pain and suffering’. Janet and Barbara were both keen to meet the man who killed their brother. They wanted to ask him why he’d killed John, and especially whether he’d been motivated by homophobia. This desire to discover an offender’s motives is apparently very common among victims, perhaps because it can help bring coherence to their narrative of the crime. Michael told the sisters that he was not homophobic, and that he and his accomplice had simply seen John as an easy target. He said he’d had no intention to kill John, but that things had gone wrong in a way he’d regretted ever since. Janet said this gave her a new understanding of her loss, one that (in Walters’ words) ‘put a stop to 15 years of recurring questions’. Another motivation that the sisters had was to explain to the killer the profound consequences of his actions. They told him about their brother (‘if he wasn’t my brother he could quite easily have been our friend…he was a nice guy…the guy that went with the Soup Kitchen helping the homeless…he was that guy’). In turn Michael apologised to Janet and Barbara, and they felt his apology was genuine and that they’d successfully conveyed to
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him how his actions were having consequences years later. The sisters also heard Michael’s perspective: he’d been abused from an early age, was homeless from age 11 and had drink problems. They were sceptical at first, but then they began to soften. ‘I thought, you know, “he’s a thug”, “he's a monster”… and it was quite shocking to see him, he was just…normal you know? ... I could understand where he was coming from, what he was saying, and why it happened,’ said Janet. In a way, Walters explains, the two parties (the sisters and the killer) were revealing each other’s humanity. The meeting ended with them shaking hands and Michael promising not to return to the problems of his earlier life. The sisters said the process had been extremely beneficial. Barbara had previously rung Janet almost daily for years to discuss their brother’s murder. After the restorative justice meeting, this stopped. However, there was an unexpected emotion that Walters highlights as potentially problematic and important for future research (‘We must remain cautious about “rolling out” a measure that can give rise to new psychological challenges,’ he says). That is, Janet came to realise that she actually liked the murderer Michael, which ultimately led to difficult feelings of guilt. ‘I came out feeling very, very guilty ... cause I felt I shouldn't have been thinking anything like that [liking Michael] at all ... I shoulda, absolutely hate him and not feel any, not have any positive thoughts about him or have any compassion about him but I did.’ For his part, Michael said the meeting was one of the toughest things he’d ever done, and that nothing could be as intense as coming face to face with your victim’s family: ...one sister asked ‘do you consider yourself to be evil to the core? ... to be asked that by anyone is difficult but to be asked by [the] victims [of] their brother you’ve murdered, it was extremely hard to answer. [Interviewer: What did you say?] I answered honestly, I said that what I had done was serious and was evil but I don’t consider myself evil to the core. The sister said that they thought we don’t think you are. [Interviewer: How did that make you feel?]… very emotional to hear your victims, whose brother you’ve murdered, at the end of the day you’ve murdered their brother [and] they don’t consider you’re evil to the core. I was welling up... the sisters had tears rolling down their eyes. Walters said this effect of restorative justice on offenders could help break the self-fulfilling prophesy whereby criminals come to behave in ways consistent with how they believe the world sees them, as evil monsters. Of course, the findings need to be interpreted with caution: this is just one story and as Walters explains, ‘it is not possible to draw generalisable conclusions.’ Also, restorative justice is not for everyone: indeed, John’s two other sisters declined to take part because they felt too angry. However, the research certainly highlights interesting points for future research. ‘Most significantly,’ Walters concludes, ‘The emotionality behind such [restorative] dialogue further enabled [all involved] to develop a renewed understanding of each other. Collectively, the interpersonal connections that emerged allowed all stakeholders to move beyond their experience of homicide better equipped to deal with its painful aftermath.’ CJ
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It’s better to have two passions in life than one In Journal of Happiness Studies As long as you don’t become obsessive and defensive about it, there’s a wealth of evidence to show that having a passion in life is good for you psychologically – people with a so-called ‘harmonious passion’ (but not so much those with an ‘obsessive passion’) tend to be happier, to enjoy more positive emotions and be more satisfied with life, as compared with people who don’t have a passion. As we see in the new year, a study published in the Journal of Happiness Studies poses a simple question: given how beneficial it is to have one harmonious passion, what’s the effect of having two? Benjamin Schellenberg and Daniel Bailis didn’t go into this research with any firm predictions: they reasoned that perhaps the effect of having two passions would be additive, so people with two would show even more psychological benefits than those with just one. But on the other hand, they considered it plausible that having two passions could get a little complicated – juggling the two might get stressful and each might detract from the other.
To test this, the researchers surveyed 1218 undergrads (including 878 women) about their most favourite activity and their second favourite. The students answered questions about these activities to reveal whether they were truly passions (for instance, doing something a lot would indicate that it was a passion), and if so, whether it was a harmonious passion or an obsessive passion (here, having difficulty controlling the urge to do the activity would be one sign that a passion was obsessive). The students also filled out a range of questionnaires about their moods and well-being and lifesatisfaction. Overall, 31 per cent of the sample had one passion (about half of these students had a harmonious passion, the other half had an obsessive passion), and 54 per cent of the sample had two passions (roughly a third of this group had two harmonious passions, another third had two obsessive and the remainder a mix). Consistent with past research, having a harmonious passion or two was associated with greater
happiness and wellbeing than having an obsessive passion (or two), or with having no passion (15 per cent of the sample had no passions). Focusing on just those students who had either one harmonious passion or two, the researchers found that having two was better than having one, in terms of enhanced happiness, wellbeing and positive moods. Of course it's possible that people with two passions simply spend more time on enjoyable activities than those with one passion, but actually the researchers found having two passions was associated with greater wellbeing and happiness gains even when the total amount of time invested across two passions was the same as the time invested by others in one passion. ‘Having a passion in life may be important in the pursuit of happiness, but it may be best to have multiple passions,’ the
researchers said. They said future research was needed to explore the optimal number of passions to have beyond two, and to study what leads people to develop multiple harmonious passions in the first place. Before you sign up for a new hobby, bear in mind a problem with this research is its crosssectional design (the fact it only took measures at one point in time). This means we don’t know if happier people who are more satisfied with their lives are simply more likely to have multiple passions, as opposed to multiple passions causing extra happiness. CJ
Here’s a simple way to improve your work–life boundaries In Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Critical goals still unconquered at the day’s end are the path to a spoiled evening, according to new research published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. But thankfully the paper outlines an effective tactic we can take to minimise their impact. We all know our work life can disrupt our free time by supplying unwanted thoughts that pop up when we should be relaxing. But what’s doing the popping: Concerns about pay, whether to bring Christmas cards in, flashbacks to spreadsheets? Severe events such as bullying can certainly cast a shadow beyond working hours. But Ball State University’s Brandon Smit has identified a more common culprit – uncompleted goals. Taking his inspiration from classic lab studies showing that uncompleted goals are particularly likely to linger in mind, Smit surveyed 103 employed people, asking them to report which goals had been ticked off and which unfinished at the close of each day, and then just before bed to report on how much these goals had occupied their thoughts that evening. As you might expect, the incomplete goals intruded more, unless they had been rated as fairly unimportant. This effect applied only to participants who reported a higher level of job involvement; those uninvested were immune. This is no great surprise, but what can we do about it? In one
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sense it is advantageous for our minds to keep uncompleted goals ‘live’ in our system, that way they are easily triggered, which makes sure we don’t forget them. The trouble is, when a TV advert references ‘limited time offers’ or ‘customer service’, these goals force themselves into mind when we’re unable or don’t want to act on them. To help prevent this, Smit asked a subset of his participants, once they had described their incomplete goals, to clearly plan where, when and how they would tackle each one, for example: ‘I will go into work and start at 10:00 AM in a call center in my office. Log into my computer and call customers back…’ By specifying the context for action, this helped the high-involved participants to put the goals out of mind during off-work hours, and as a result their uncompleted goals produced fewer intrusions, almost as if they had the same status as completed goals. Data from a simple measure of work detachment also suggested that, using Smit’s strategy, the participants found it easier to let go of work in general. All in all, then, fretting about unfinished goals appears to be one piece of the work–life conflict puzzle, but how big a piece it is remains to be seen. Aside from the specific effect of the planning intervention on detachment, there was actually no relationship between the number of goal-related interruptions participants
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reported experiencing and their overall levels of work detachment. This is perhaps because unmeasured factors are doing hidden work: take a project review meeting, for instance. This can raise many questions (Do I need to raise my game? Am I being lined up for that promotion?) that may occupy a worker’s mind during his or her leisure time, even though such meetings tend to happen after important goals have already been completed. This suggests we need to gather a more holistic picture of worklife conflict, involving goals, people issues and existential concerns. That said, this research
does offer helpful insights for under-pressure professionals. While switching off work phones and leaving our briefcase at the office may be useful in developing work–life boundaries, this study reminds us that our heads will still carry work memories with us, ready to trigger. The solution tested here by Smits resembles the ‘open loop’ concept popularised by management consultant Dave Allen (an open loop is anything that pulls at your attention when it shouldn’t). The implication is that if you capture and schedule your work activities, you’ll be more likely to find some much-needed peace during downtime. AF
LINK FEAST Stop Being So Self-Conscious Relax, people aren’t paying as much attention to you as you think they are. By Paul Bloom for The Atlantic. www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/12/stop-being-so-selfconscious/420897 The Strange Psychology of Pain Relief Medicine How branding, descriptions of targeted effects, and tablet colours can all affect our beliefs about the effectiveness of drugs. www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35091242 Evidence of a Christmas Spirit Network in the Brain: Functional MRI Study There is a ‘Christmas spirit network’ in the human brain, according to this new research published in the BMJ as part of its festive collection of daft-but-real studies. www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h6266 How Popular People’s Brains Are Different A new study Digest editor Christian Jarrett covered for New York’s Science of Us suggests there may be a self-perpetuating aspect to being one of the cool kids. http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/12/how-popular-peoplesbrains-are-different.html?mid=twitter_nymag Possessed by a Mask Every human culture has used masks for ritual disinhibition, shaming and play. Is being online the ultimate masquerade? An Aeon magazine essay by Sandra Newman. https://aeon.co/essays/how-masks-explain-the-psychology-behindonline-harassment? Why Behavioral Economics Is Cool, and I’m Not At Medium, Organisational psychologist Adam Grant – yes he’s a psychologist not an economist – wonders if psychology might have a bit of a branding problem. https://medium.com/@AdamMGrant/why-behavioral-economics-iscool-and-i-m-not-807ca32fac5b
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Are women really better than men at furniture assembly (as IKEA claim)? In Applied Cognitive Psychology In 2008 Petra Hesser – the then head of flat-pack furniture company IKEA in Germany, now the group’s Global Human Resources Manager – made headlines by claiming that women are better than men at assembling flat-pack furniture. To a group of psychologists in Norway, this pronouncement was crying out for scientific testing, especially since, if true, it would contradict many years’ worth of data showing that, on average, men tend to outperform women on spatial skills, which you’d expect would be relevant to furniture construction. For their new study, the researchers (based at UiT The Arctic University of Norway) have conducted a carefully controlled comparison of men’s and women’s ability to assemble flat-pack furniture. Moreover, they specifically put to the test Hesser’s claim that women are better than men because they take the time to read the assembly instructions. Forty men and forty women, all university students, were challenged with constructing IKEA's ‘Udden’ kitchen trolley as quickly and accurately as
possible. All participants worked individually on the assembly under the discreet supervision of a researcher. Half had to construct the trolley without instructions (but with an image of the final assembled product); the others had the step-by-step assembly instructions that IKEA provides with the product. The researchers also tested the participants’ mental rotation skills (their ability to rotate objects and shapes in their mind’s eye), and asked them questions about their experience at furniture construction and other related activities. The main result? The men were faster and more accurate in their construction of the trolley than the women. In terms of time taken, the men took 22.48 minutes with instructions, on average, and 24.80 minutes without, compared with the women taking 23.65 minutes with instructions, on average, and 28.44 minutes without. In terms of construction scores (from 1 to 10 where 10 represents a perfectly built trolley), men averaged 8.9 with instructions,
The material in this section is taken from the Society’s Research Digest blog at www.researchdigest.org.uk/blog, and is written by its editor Dr Christian Jarrett and contributor Dr Alex Fradera. Visit the blog for full coverage including references and links, additional current reports, an archive, comment, our podcast and more. Subscribe to the fortnightly e-mail, friend, follow and more via www.bps.org.uk/digest
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7.6 without; the women averaged 7.5 with, and 5.7 without. These differences in performance were despite the fact the men and women reported having similar levels of experience with furniture assembly. Digging into the results, it’s clear that women benefited more than men from having instructions (they saved an average of around 4.5 minutes with instructions vs. without, whereas men only speeded up by about a minute). Indeed, the researchers highlight that once you factor out their time spent reading the instructions, the women’s performance with instructions was almost as good as the men’s performance without instructions. This observation backs the IKEA manager’s claim that women pay more attention to instructions than men, but it doesn’t support her additional claim that this makes them superior at the task. Related to these points, and consistent with the wider literature, there was a large sex difference in mental rotation ability, with the male participants significantly outperforming the women on this measure. Interestingly, participants with poorer mental rotation abilities spent more time with the instructions, as if compensating for their weaker spatial skills. When mental rotation ability was factored out of the analysis, there was still a sex difference in time taken to construct the furniture, but the sex difference in the accuracy of the construction disappeared, which certainly suggests that one reason the male participants may have outperformed their female peers is because they tended to have superior mental rotation abilities, likely making them less dependent on the visuals in the instructions. Looking at the participants’ descriptions of their practice at other relevant activities, more sex differences emerged. For example, greater experience at furniture assembly (and with Lego) correlated with better task performance among the
men, but not among the women. Similarly, more experience with finding routes on maps was correlated positively with men’s furniture assembly ability, but actually showed an inverse correlation with assembly ability among the women, perhaps the researchers surmised because men and women use different mental processes when wayfinding, and only the male approach has knock-on benefits for construction. This research should not be taken as the final word on men’s and women’s furniture assembly abilities. Not only was this a small student sample in Norway, but there are other factors to bear in mind when appraising this kind of research. For example, men are known to be inclined to greater competitiveness than women, so perhaps they were more motivated. Here the wording of the task instructions may have been interpreted rather differently by men and women (the paper simply states that the participants were asked to assemble the furniture as efficiently as possible, with a maximum of 30 minutes allowed). Likewise, it’s well established that performance can be undermined by societal stereotypes – such as the widely held belief that (despite the IKEA manager’s claim) women usually are not as good as men at DIY or other manual tasks. It would have been useful to know the sex of the researcher who met and timed the participants, which may have exacerbated such effects of ‘stereotype threat’. The battle of the sexes aside, this research offers up a simple piece of practical advice because both men and women were quicker at construction when they had instructions at their disposal. ‘…our results attest to the value of IKEA’s instructions,’ the researchers concluded, ‘and all furniture providers should make sure that their instructions are well designed. Time spent on good instructions should make furniture assembly less frustrating for both men and women.’ CJ
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DIGEST DIGESTED Full reports are available at www.bps.org.uk/digest People who score low in the personality trait ‘Agreeableness’ seem to be particularly adept at getting other people to listen to their creative ideas, especially if those other people also have disagreeable characters. The study is among the first to look beyond idea generation to the more social aspects of creativity. Journal of Business and Psychology Previous research has shown that religious people tend to be more intolerant than non-believers. A new study finds this is mostly due to an extreme minority of fundamentalists. The majority of religious people actually show the same amount or even less intolerance toward people they view as different, as compared with nonbelievers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology By age four, children are already willing to make sacrifices in the name of group loyalty. Children were asked to keep secrets by a hand puppet, and they were more willing to do this if the puppet was in their ‘team’ (as established only minutes earlier through the distribution of coloured scarfs). Journal of Experimental Child Psychology Our life stories are made up of two distinct kinds of change: transitions and turning points. The former tend to be external, are easily pointed to by oneself or others, and seem to act like temporal landmarks – thinking of them prompts recall of related memories. Turning points by contrast are more internal in nature, usually a decision or change in emotion or attitude. Applied Cognitive Psychology There’s a common assumption that people who swear liberally are making up for some kind of intellectual deficit. A new study challenges this claim from at least one perspective – swearing fluency tends to correlate with non-swearing verbal fluency. That is, being fluent at swearing is actually a sign of healthy verbal ability. Language Sciences For understandable reasons, we usually see recessions as bad things. But an analysis of US data reveals a silver lining – during recessions, those people who stay in work tend to get more sleep and enjoy more free time. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology No matter their experience with the puzzles, people consistently assume that anagrams will be easier to solve if they are pronounceable, than if they are unpronounceable. In fact the complete converse is true – pronounceable anagrams are trickier. The ‘fluency effect’ could be at play here – our tendency to react positively to things we find easier to process at a superficial level. Cognition
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Can psychology find a path to peace? As the UK’s Parliament voted to allow bombing in Syria, we asked – are there evidence-based ways to resolve this conflict?
he attacks in Paris, Beirut and more. Must suffering beget suffering? Social psychology’s short answer is: No! The vote to extend UK bombing to Human behaviour is driven by goals. Our Syria. Events of huge, worldwide goals reflect our desires. As such, they significance. They demand a response, represent our social and moral character and our discipline of psychology should to the outside world. Conflicts arise when be well placed to provide one. our goals clash against someone else’s But what? In the acres of coverage goals. The massacres in Beirut and Paris during November and December, there were interpreted as representing the did not seem to be a lot of psychology. barbaric essence of ISIS. They could also Perhaps the odd piece on psychological be understood as the tragic traps set by debriefing, on the effects on children of ISIS to prove its image of the West and their homes being bombed. But surely to assert its narrative of the conflict as psychology can be more than the an intergroup conflict between Muslims ambulance chaser? Are we really resigned and the West. to remaining quiet as the bombs fall, only How is one to respond to being emerging later to mop up the mess? wronged without proving the enemy’s Can we turn to ‘peace psychology’ for image of oneself right? ways out of a Psychological research has seemingly intractable established that a basic war? Or is it ill“Bombing Syria will psychological need of victim equipped to deal be received as an groups is to restore their with the modern act of revenge for autonomy and sense of control world, where many the Paris attack” (Nadler & Shnabel, 2008). This people characterise is reflected in our impulse to desire those we are fighting revenge following exposure to as ‘extremists’, who victimisation. But these impulses may cannot be reasoned with? be managed and even suppressed when Does the solution rest with the next questioning the goals and unintended generation? Can psychology understand consequences of such vengefulness. ‘violent extremism’ (see tinyurl.com/ Bombing Syria will be received as an digestextrem), and is it a useful tool in act of revenge for the Paris attack, even cutting off the problem at source? though Western governments may not We sought contributions online, and have intended it as such. Its goal to we publish a selection here. Hopefully prevent Western citizens from future this is just the beginning in our search for similar attacks is doubtful. In fact, the evidence-based, practical contributions bombing may reveal the West’s moral from psychology in finding a path to inconsistencies (e.g. business peace.
references
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Abrams, D. (2010). Processes of prejudice: Theory, evidence and intervention. Research Report 56. London: Equalities and Human Rights Commission. Abrams, D. & Houston, D.M. (2006). Equality, diversity and prejudice in Britain: Results from the 2005 national survey. Report for the Cabinet Office Equalities Review October 2006. Abrams, D., Houston, D.M., Van de Vyver,
J. & Vasiljevic, M. (2015). Equality hypocrisy: Equality is a universal human right that we apply unequally. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 21, 28–46. Abrams, D. & Vasiljevic, M. (2014). How does macroeconomic change affect social identity (and vice versa?): Insights from the European context. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 14, 311–338.
relationships are maintained with countries such Saudi Arabia and China which have a high record of beheadings and other human rights violations) and its ethnocentric biases toward valuing ingroup versus outgroup lives differentially (e.g. bombing Northern Ireland was – thankfully – never considered as a strategy to eliminate the terror threats posed by the Irish Republican Army; see also Pratto & Glasford, 2008). And staying closer to psychology, would we have had this special feature in The Psychologist had ISIS not attacked Paris? All of the above does mostly one thing, namely, to feed into the ISIS narrative of victimhood. Recent social psychological insights have uncovered that victimhood is best considered as a psychological resource over which conflicting groups may compete (Noor et al., 2012). It is referred to as competitive victimhood and has catastrophic consequences for conflict resolution. That is, due to mutual victimisation, each of the adversary groups develops a profound sense of being the ‘real’ victim. Consequently, competitive victimhood motivates groups to draw attention to their own suffering while failing to acknowledge the suffering they inflict on each other. Importantly, the more groups operate out of a competitive victimhood mindset the less likely they are to consider resolution of their violent conflict (Shnabel et al., 2013). Is there an alternative strategy powerful enough to disrupt the ISIS’s narratives without generating further suffering? Given its etymological roots, forgiveness as a strategy usually prompts sentiments ranging from naivety and unrealistic pacifism to misplaced religious and spiritual moralisation. Yet, analysis of real-life stories of victims and academic research conducted in postand ongoing-conflict settings challenge such sentiments as well as our common association between weakness and forgiveness (Noor et al., 2008; www.theforgivenesstoolbox.com).
Atran, S. (2010). Pathways to and from violent extremism: The case for science-based field research. Statement before the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities. Available at www.artisresearch.com/articles/Atran _Statement_Before_the_Senate.pdf Burgess, G., Burgess, H. & Maiese, M. (2004). Revenge and the backlash effect. Available at
www.beyondintractability.org/essay/b acklash Christmann, K. (2012). Preventing religious radicalisation and violent extremism: A systematic review of the research evidence. London: Youth Justice Board. Hoffman, D.H., Carter, D.J., Viglucci Lopez, C.R. et al. (2015). Independent review relating to APA ethics guidelines, national security,
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A key goal of forgiveness is to break the cycle of revenge and to protect the victims from becoming victimisers. It is a desire to go beyond one’s impulse for personal revenge. As such, victims place their personal tragedies into the public domain and invite society into a bigger search for seeking answers to the big why-questions to prevent future tragedies. It also forms the discipline not to give in to the enticements of dehumanising an entire community that may share some basic memberships with the actual perpetrators. To forgive is to surprise your enemy. At least, it will confuse them. It certainly can undermine the ISIS narrative of framing the conflict as Muslims fighting against the evil West. We cannot expect the pursuit of such alternative strategies from our governments, before giving them our permission and reassurances to do so. Simultaneously, we need to demand from our governments to give us adequate time to mourn the dead. This is even more important in today’s world with many people having many bloods and belongings to different places and nations across the world. Following the Twin Tower and the Paris attacks, Western citizens were deprived of going through the process of mourning and introspection and non-Western citizens from maintaining their sympathy and condolences for the West, due to Western governments declaring wars on entire regions overnight. Consequently, we all have accepted and acted out of the then al-Qaeda and now ISIS narratives. Naturally, the way we currently define strength and weakness, or leadership, allows limited mental space to consider these alternative strategies to revenge seriously. However, a useful mantra to use against cynicism and alleged realism is the vision that there are infinite solutions to resolve conflict once adversary groups have meaningfully acknowledged their mutual grievances.
An imagined dialogue with my late friend Ed Cairns Di: Good morning, Ed. We miss you, you know. Can you spare me a moment? I have a query here from Jon Sutton, Editor of The Psychologist, that I would like to discuss with you. He is concerned about the current situation, the bombings in Paris, Beirut and elsewhere and the decision in the UK to bomb Syria. He thinks that you would have something to say [see https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume14/edition-6/war-and-peace-0], but wonders why the rest of us are silent. Ed: This is more than one question, Di. ‘Does psychology have relevance to understanding and responding to the situation?’ is one. ‘Why don’t psychologists speak up?’ is another. Di: What about the first?
Masi Noor Liverpool John Moores University
interrogations, and torture. Report to the Special Committee of the Board of Directors of the American Psychological Association. Chicago, IL: Sidley Austin LLP. Available at www.apa.org/independent-review/ APA-FINAL-Report-7.2.15.pdf Nadler, A. & Shnabel, N. (2008). Instrumental and socio-emotional inter-group reconciliation: The needs based model of reconciliation. In A.
Ed: We know a great deal about structural
Nadler, T. Maloy, & J.D. Fisher (Eds.) Social psychology of inter-group reconciliation. (pp.37–56). New York: Oxford University Press. Nail, P.R., McGregor, I., Drinkwater, A. et al. (2009). Threat causes liberals to think like conservatives. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 901–907. Noor, M., Brown, R., Gonzalez, R. et al. (2008). On positive psychological
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and direct violence, we can say much about the cyclical processes that escalate conflict, and we know that the trauma of war affects both those who attack and those who are attacked. We also know quite a lot about the way young people are recruited into rebel groups and how the process may be reversed. Di: But is peace psychology still relevant? Aren’t members of ISIS so extreme that we cannot negotiate with them? Isn’t this a new form of war? Ed: History is replete with examples of extremism. The Buddhist monks who burned themselves in protest against the South Vietnamese government, the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot, the Spanish Inquisition, Fascism in Germany, the apartheid regime in South Africa, the Klu Klux Klan in America to name a few. I am
outcomes: What helps groups with a history of conflict to forgive and reconcile with each other? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 819–832. Noor, M., Shnabel, N., Halabi, S. & Nadler, A. (2012). When suffering begets suffering the psychology of competitive victimhood between adversarial groups in violent conflicts. Personality and Social Psychology
Review, 16, 351–374. Pratto, F. & Glasford, D.E. (2008). Ethnocentrism and the value of a human life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 1411–1428. Pruitt, D., Rubin, J. & Kim, S.H. (2003). Social conflict: Escalation, stalemate, and settlement (3rd edn). New York: McGraw-Hill Education. Shnabel, N., Halabi, S. & Noor, M. (2013). Overcoming competitive victimhood
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Di: What about the second question? Why are we silent?
sure you can think of many other examples.
contextualise: it is not too surprising if we find it hard to comment on contexts.
Di: So although the context has changed there are still continuities with the past? Psychological understandings still apply? Ed: Yes, one of the main differences is that the violence is in our own backyard, something we understand in Northern Ireland. You Aussies go off and fight in other places and expect the war to stay ‘over there’.
Di: Another reason for silence is the close Ed: Well, I must say the silence of the link between American psychology, which psychologists is making me cross. There is very influential around the world, and are a few things in the epistemology of the the military. It is difficult to speak out discipline that contribute. One is the focus against bombing if you are on individual psychology. employed by the armed forces. Earlier psychologists, like “history is replete Like other APA members (I’m the psychoanalysts, with examples of an international member of recognised the importance extremism… there is APA like you were, Ed) I was of communities and shocked by the findings of the societies, but the no need to give up” Di: I guess you are right about that. Is Hoffman Report (Hoffman et prevailing fashion is to there anything we can do to improve the al., 2015), which revealed the look at individuals as the situation? complicity of psychologists in the unit of study. Having this micro focus development of torture techniques, but makes it difficult to comment on global Ed: Well, the key to success is working if we had stopped to look back and reflect affairs. Another is the need for empirical together. Those of us from other faiths the important role of the army in the data. Don’t get me wrong, I did empirical need to work to understand and build history of psychology was there all along. work myself. But if we must always wait better relationships with Islam, so we can Now, you studied children. What for the data to come in before warning stand together against all forms of violence. against a course of action it may be too late do you think about this so-called If we focus only on ISIS and do so by radicalisation process where young to change the course of action. Also the means that alienate the vast majority of Muslims are lured away to fight for ISIS. emphasis on the present in psychology Muslims, we may win a battle but will How can we intervene? In Australia we sometimes robs us of the lessons of the certainly lose the war. are planning more extreme measures like past. Our discipline tends to derefusing re-entry to Australia even though the fighters hold Australian passports, or locking up people who are deemed to be 'The last thing we should do is send in troops' a terrorist threat for life. I feel the last thing we (the US and the West) should do is send in troops, as that appears to be exactly what they are hoping for to draw us in to [see tinyurl.com/zxox8f4]. I think one Ed: Drawing on past experience we know of the more hopeful signs – other than the Vienna talks on Syria – is the moderate that punishment is not necessarily effective, Muslim movement in Indonesia, Nahdlatul Ulama [see tinyurl.com/zzfb6r6]. The world that rewards are more reliable in shaping needs resistance and push-back against violent extremism from inside Islam. It needs to new behaviours. Do you know examples of offer potential recruits another equally compelling vision. converting militants back to functioning in I do feel that the West should do all it can to exert pressure on the Saudis to cut civil society? funding to Wahhabism in all its manifestations. This is the source. Finally, I also think Di: Yes, there was a conversion programme that some of Hillary Clinton’s proposed policies (24-step plan) can provide more in the Philippines, where rebel soldiers immediate responses to contain ISIL. were re-employed into the armed forces of But ultimately, the US and the West more generally, need to learn from the six former the government. And I know former child heads of Shin Bet, the Israeli security agency, interviewed in the documentary The soldiers from African countries who are not Gatekeepers. They all, to a man, come to the conclusion that the more sophisticated they only productive citizens in Australia, but get at military tactics (such as our use of drones), the farther away they move from their are also becoming peace workers. strategic political goals. I highly recommend this film. Readers may also be interested in my essay on what America can do to reduce its Ed: So there is no need to give up hope? own violent tendencies (tinyurl.com/jso9vz4], and my essay with Andrea Bartoli on There might be ways to intervene in the dealing with extremists (www.beyondintractability.org/essay/dealing-extremists). process that leads youngsters to take up their weapons, and to instead help Peter Coleman reconcile them with their communities. Professor of Psychology and Education at Columbia University Di: Yes. What worries me most is the way those who protest against Islam here in Australia (they call themselves Australia First) are starting to sound like ISIS, and even to look like them, wearing combat 17783–17785. and facilitating forgiveness through gear and flags across their faces. Williams, K.D. (2009). Ostracism: A re-categorization into a common victim or perpetrator identity. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49, 867–877. Whitehouse, H., McQuinn, B., Buhrmester, M. & Swann, W.B. (2014). Brothers in arms: Libyan revolutionaries bond like family. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 111(50),
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Ed: You’ve hit your word limit. Di: But there is so much more to say. Ed: So don’t remain silent any more. Diane Bretherton University of Queensland
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In pursuit of harmonious cohesion Political responses to the November 13th attack on Paris have been swift, dramatic and decisive. But an important question is whether these responses are proportionate, reasonable and strategically appropriate, or whether they are knee-jerk, or even politically opportunistic, reactions to momentary fluctuations in public sentiment. Research suggests that, by changing the way we view human relationships, shocking terrorist events might promote a reactionary lurch, but that reaction does not have to be an enduring one. What we all have to live with, however, are the political and policy decisions that follow. The Syrian refugee crisis throughout 2015 clearly affected public opinion across Europe, and certainly in the UK, to become more wary and fearful about immigration. It created a climate in which border control was already becoming a significant issue. Throughout the summer a series of horrendous terror attacks orchestrated by ISIS fuelled a more retributive political rhetoric that strengthened support for nationalistic political parties. By the end of 2015 the British Parliament had approved a widening of bombing strikes to Syria (a primarily symbolic gesture of solidarity with France’s ‘war’ on ISIS). However, in some ways there is more to learn from the UK’s orientation to France than its views on ISIS. There was a striking shift in the government’s orientation to European unity. The general election campaign had been dominated by debates on
immigration and border control. Heralding his strategy for renegotiations prior to the Euro referendum, on 10 November David Cameron gave a speech articulating how Britain was so different from the rest of Europe, how we had different objectives, needs and positions on many things. He stated, ‘The commitment…to an ever closer union is not a commitment that should apply any longer to Britain. We do not believe in it, we do not subscribe to it.’ Yet by 14 November, one day after the attacks in Paris, he was declaring to France that ‘your values are our values…more than ever we should come together and stand united’. This apparent volte-face can be readily explained by simple psychological principles. Almost all terrorist attacks are followed by shock and then a political proclamation of the defence of society's core values. Often these are framed in terms of protecting a decent society in which everyone is treated fairly and equally. Yet, in the face of a common enemy the illusion of an idealised society (one in which true, correct and pure principles are upheld) emerges through a particular form of cohesion, which can be labelled ‘rivalrous cohesion’ (Abrams, 2010). By focusing on a common enemy, one’s group, region, nation or continent finds an empowering common focus that obliterates important differences in perspective and creates a sense of unity and consensus. This form of cohesion is essential to mobilise armies, win competitions, and so forth, but it is also
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potentially dangerous as a vehicle for extreme group polarisation and intensification of conflict. What can psychology offer here? It is important to recognise that there are other forms of cohesion. Harmonious cohesion is a state in which humanitarian principles and shared valuing of all individuals predominates. This is likely to arise in societies that do not face significant economic pressures, in which there is less inequality, and when there are few or no significant external threats (Abrams & Vasiljevic, 2014). The road to harmonious cohesion is gradual and gentle, but it requires the promotion of empathy, the sharing of superordinate identities and multiple cross-cutting identities, thereby limiting simplistic categorisation of ‘them and us’. Sustaining and nourishing this slow route to cohesion is hard, particularly as the route to rivalrous cohesion is potentially much faster and easier. Rivalrous cohesion is likely to be a response to uncertainty, particularly uncertainty over where threats reside, who our friends are, and so on. If we accept the argument that core psychological needs include those of belonging, meaning, control and esteem (cf. Williams, 2009) we can readily see how the threat arising from a terrorist attack elevates all of these, and how rivalrous cohesion helps to satisfy them all. In fact, and rather strangely, even in a society where almost everyone strongly believes in equality, fairness and justice, people show both types of cohesion at the same time. When they consider non-
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Professor Dominic Abrams Professor of Social Psychology and Director of the Centre for the Study of Group Processes University of Kent
ISIS and the law of political irony Economist and peace and conflict scholar But the vast majority of Muslims are Kenneth Boulding used to lecture about not incorrigible. They may not share our the ‘law of political irony’ – Many things values; we may disagree with many of you do to hurt people help them, and their beliefs; but if we allow them to live many things you do to help people hurt as they choose, most of them will allow us them. That is exactly what is happening to do the same. with ISIS. We are bombing them in an ISIS can’t be defeated with outsiders effort to weaken or, ideally, even destroy bombing because the ‘backlash effect’ will them. However, this action is actually take hold – for every ISIS operative we making them stronger – and us weaker. kill, we will create several more by deeply ISIS's worldwide terror strategy is angering people whose homes we have designed to instil fear and hatred of ‘the destroyed (Burgess et al., 2004). If we other’ across the globe. And that’s working assume that all Muslims or ‘brown– just look at the US Presidential skinned’ people are our enemies, they candidate Donald Trump, and the astonishing support he is receiving for his broad anti-Muslim rhetoric, suggesting that all Muslims be at least temporarily forbidden from entering the United States. But, when we so label and lash back at ‘the other’ – who most often are not ISIS terrorists, but all people we fear might be such (as in all Muslims, or even all people with brown skin) – we create more animosity, fear and Kurdish protesters in London burn an ISIS flag even hatred. That drives more people join ISIS, and the escalation spiral takes off (Pruitt will, indeed, become so, as people don’t et al., 2003). usually befriend people who demonise No doubt, the ISIS leadership is what them. we call ‘incorrigible’ – they have an Many Muslims fear ISIS as much as apocalyptic vision, and they can’t be we do, and those people are essential negotiated with using either competitive allies if we are to successfully fight ISIS or cooperative (‘win–win’) negotiation. both at home and abroad. Locals have They have to be isolated, delegitimised, the knowledge of who is and who isn’t and disarmed. a threat; they have legitimacy and credibility on their home turf. We don’t – we are interlopers (with a bad reputation, by the way). In short, what ISIS is trying to do is drive an escalation/dehumanisation spiral to the point of producing a catastrophic and apocalyptic war between the West and the Islamic world. Our central objective should be preventing this strategy from working. Bombing civilians in the hope of killing a few (or even many) ISIS operatives likely will do the opposite.
We are keen to build an online resource around this question, with as much diversity as possible. Submit your practical, evidence-based suggestions in the comments at https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/can-psychology-help-us-out-mess or e-mail the editor on jon.sutton@bps.org.uk.
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threatening groups such as older people, women, people with disabilities, and so forth, they adopt a ‘benevolent’ attitude, advocating promotion of more equality of opportunity, treatment and rights, and behaving more generously towards those groups. However, when they consider groups that potentially challenge majority values or way of life they withdraw these advantages (Abrams & Houston, 2006, Abrams et al., 2014). Rivalrous cohesion exists and can be expressed by people on both the political right and political left (witness the infighting in the Labour Party). But reactions to terrorist events may cause a population shift to the right not just by hardening the resolve of ‘hawks’ but by weakening that of the ‘doves’ to accept the rivalrous cohesion agenda (Nail et al., 2009). This greater malleability means that doves may be engaged by rivalrous cohesion, but are likely to return to their core values. The risk is that, in the ebb and flow of political opinion, decisions are made that set a trajectory that accelerates rivalrous cohesion when that may not in fact reflect the more enduring priorities of the population. Psychology’s role in all this is to alert both the people in general but in particular those who are making critical policy judgements and decisions, and who may be responding to immediate pressure from public opinion, that there is a potential cost to pursuing rivalrous cohesion, a cost that should not be underestimated and that should be weighed carefully against the losses that may damage hard-won harmonious cohesion.
Heidi Burgess PhD Guy Burgess PhD Co-Directors, Conflict Information Consortium Instructors, Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Colorado, Boulder
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Understanding ‘identity fusion’ where it matters
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Can psychology contribute to tackling the research is carried out by psychologists, employs heads of research who are root causes of violent extremism? And can such as Susan Michie’s team at UCL’s trained social scientists, proficient field it contribute something meaningful to Centre for Behaviour Change (CBC). The researchers, and themselves Muslim. resolving what currently seems to be an CBC is focused on health behaviours; and Each research lead heads a team of social intractable conflict? I believe it can, and the much-publicised Behavioural Insights science researchers who are drawn from have been conducting research into just Team is focused on behaviour change for the country in which we are conducting how. This year I’ve been working with policy. Yet the same high-quality science research. These researchers administer cognitive scientists and anthropologists at that is the hub of these units can also be our surveys, interview schedules and Oxford University’s Institute for Cognitive applied to understanding the allure and (increasingly) tablet-loaded quasiand Evolutionary Anthropology (ICEA) the behaviours of terrorist networks and experimental tasks in the very and the Centre for the Resolution of how to design credible, evidence-based, communities where military intelligence Intractable Conflict (CRIC) in designing measurable interventions to weaken suggests extremists originate. and conducting science-based field studies them. Recently, our team collected survey into the mechanisms (both psychological To that end, the MSE has just data from 200 males in Benghazi in an and social) of radicalisation in the Middle requested bids to conduct research effort to better understand the processes East. in a Middle East country to better that lead to identity fusion – tight, There is a pressing need for empirical understand the pathways towards visceral bonds that have been shown to peer-reviewed research in this area. The radicalisation, and how to develop bind together people who have shared US and UK spend tens of billions on communication interventions that might dysphoric experiences (e.g. Whitehouse munitions and equipment, and yet almost effectively influence potential recruits to et al., 2014). Understanding the cognitive nothing on scientific research to choose otherwise. In writing a section and social processes (and the external understand the phenomenon they are of this bid on the ‘psychological drivers’ stimuli) that trigger identity fusion is vital fighting, and which poses a grave threat towards radicalisation, I was struck by the if we are to understand the mechanisms to world security. In 2010 the paucity of experimental and field-based that bond radicalised individuals together, anthropologist Scott Atran (a co-founder scientific research into the mechanisms because evidence suggests (e.g. of CRIC) in a statement before the US of radicalisation. In a comprehensive Christmann, 2012) that youths are drawn Senate argued that we have no sustained, systematic review, Christmann (2012) to extremist groups because their systematic scientific research that will presents several broad process theories, personal identity conflicts may be enable us to understand the ‘motivation, but there is little psychological insight resolved by submission to a greater ideal. intent, will and the dreams’ of current or into the mental and social processes that This kind of psychologically informed would-be violent extremists (Atran, ‘push’ and/or ‘pull’ an individual further science-based research will be necessary 2010). Five years on (and many atrocities along the pathway of radicalisation. And to fully understand the radicalisation since) we still have no programme of where there is such insight the necessary pathway, which is likely a complex research and no coherent vision. empirical support is lacking. interplay of personal, social and external However, the situation is changing. That’s why scientific field research factors. The UK Ministry of Defence recently conducted as close to terrorists as is Together with our research team invited applications for research outfits possible is so vital. In my research in the Middle East, and backed by to competitively register on their Military I work directly with an organisation that traditional academic and military funding, Strategic Effects (MSE) Framework. The specialises in field research in the Middle my colleagues and I at Oxford are hoping MSE will commission research into what East. Although run by an Oxfordto extend this work in the near future the military term Target Audience educated Arabist, the organisation into Yemen, Syria and Jordan. Our aim is Research and Analysis, or to generate a reliable and TAA. TAA is a scientific, rigorous body of empirical deductive approach to research that illuminates the understanding the pathways to and from violent motivations, norms, extremism, and the psychosocial values and beliefs, rituals, factors inherent in that decision-making processes, transition. Success in this and other psychological endeavour will require and social (group) features considerable resources and an of potential ‘audiences’ in interdisciplinary approach that is the fight against terrorism. backed by academia, the military The ultimate objective in and Middle East partners. I feel conducting TAA is to gain this research is necessary, urgent insight into how to craft and justifiable. Social scientists the most effective of all stripes can do more than interventions to change mop up the mess: we may be behaviour. able to lay the foundations for Clearly psychology has preventing the spilling of blood a huge role to play in this. in the first place. There are major academic and applied research efforts There is little psychological insight into the mental and social Dr Lee Rowland CPsychol processes that ‘push’ and/or ‘pull’ an individual further along the in large-scale behaviour Consulting research pathway of radicalisation change. Most of this psychologist
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The ascension of parent–offspring ties How are bonds between parents and their grown-up children changing, and what impact do they have? Karen Fingerman looks at the evidence.
estern cultures place romantic ties on a pedestal. Taxes, legal decisions, property and social life pivot around the couple. Yet, for individuals who are widowed, divorced, never married or between partners, a tie to a parent or grown child may be the primary bond. Moreover, most individuals value their intergenerational bonds, regardless of their romantic status. When researchers ask adults to name their most important social partners, people list their parents and grown children as nearly as important and in some cases, more important than a romantic partner. In fact, the prominence of intergenerational ties appears to be on the rise, in part because fewer adults are situated in long-term romantic ties. Among young adults (aged 20 to 34) in the UK, fewer than half reside with a romantic partner, and nearly a third of adults aged 18 to 25 reside with their parents (Office for National Statistics, 2012). Thus, the primacy of intergenerational ties between young adults and their parents may be shifting. We might ask: Which features of these ties are changing? And why? As a caveat, family researchers and the public alike tend to use the mid-20th century as the epitome of family life and evaluate current family forms against that baseline (Furstenberg, 2011). For a variety of reasons, the 1950s and 1960s are salient in societal memory. The peace of the post–World War II era permitted a focus on family, and the rise of mass media (television, magazines and radio)
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Arnett, J.J. & Schwab, J. (2012). The Clark University poll of emerging adults: Thriving, struggling, and hopeful. Worcester, MA: Clark University. Attias-Donfut, C. & Wolff, F.C. (2000). The redistributive effects of generational transfers. In S. Arbur & C. AttiasDonfut (Eds.) The myth of generational conflict (pp.22–46). New York: Routledge.
reflected and conveyed norms about family ties to the wider public. Throughout much of the world, a large cohort of post–World War II ‘Baby Boomers’ entered young adulthood. In the UK, a second baby boom occurred in the 1960s bringing attention to parenting and perhaps to autonomy from one’s own parents. Finally, social scientific research hits its stride during the mid-20th century, and documented a variety of features of family life. Researchers examined intergenerational ties between adults in the 1950s and 1960s, generating a social scientific portrait of these kinship ties. A dominant paradigm – intergenerational solidarity theory – arose
and endured across several decades. The basic premise of this theory is that intergenerational ties often show high cohesion, and, moreover, families that share values and affection are the most cohesive (Bengtson & Roberts, 1991). Scholars also documented markers of adulthood, including leaving the natal family, establishing a separate household, and procreating. Thus family patterns are often measured against an anchor period of the 1950s and 1960s, a period when grown children in Western cultures were expected to leave the parental home and establish autonomy by their early twenties. Whether this portrait of intergenerational ties remains true is of considerable interest to scholars. Given the primacy of the parent–child tie into adulthood, psychologists may be interested in fluctuations in this tie and its implications for wellbeing. Changes in three aspects of parent–child relationships in particular warrant consideration: how the parties treat one another (e.g. their level of involvement), how they feel about one another and their relationships (e.g. affection, conflict) and the effects of the relationship on psychological wellbeing. Each of these features of intergenerational ties may have changed in recent decades in ways that are associated with each party’s emotional wellbeing.
Contact and social support
Family researchers and the public alike tend to use the mid-20th century as the epitome of family life
Belsky, J., Jaffee, S., Hsieh, K.H. & Silva, P.A. (2001). Child-rearing antecedents of intergenerational relations in young adulthood. Developmental Psychology, 37, 801–808. Bengtson, V.L. & Roberts, R.E. (1991). Intergenerational solidarity in aging families. Journal of Marriage and Family, 53, 856–870. Birditt, K.S., Fingerman, K.L. & Zarit, S.
In Western cultures, ties between parents and grown children are to a large extent voluntary. Historically, laws applied to this tie. For example, English Poor Law initiated the idea that grown children were liable for their elderly parents if the parents could not care for themselves. Today, some countries have laws that require grown children to support aging parents in late life (e.g. France, Poland, Singapore) as do a few states in the US, but the laws are rarely enforced. Moreover prior to old age, during midlife and young adulthood, there are few legal proscriptions or even social sanctions that
(2010). Adult children’s problems and successes: Implications for intergenerational ambivalence. Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Science, 65, 145–153. Bucx, F., Van Wel, F., Knun, T. & Hangendoorn, L. (2008). Intergenerational contact and the life course status of young adult children. Journal of Marriage and Family, 70, 144–156.
Dykstra, P.A., van den Broek, T., Muresan, C. et al. (2013). Intergenerational linkages in families. Working paper in the Changing families and sustainable societies. European Union's Seventh Framework Programme. Fingerman, K.L., Chen, P-C., Hay, E.L. et al. (2006). Ambivalent reactions in the parent and offspring relationship. Journals of Gerontology: Psychological
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mandate contact or support between the parties. Parents and grown children choose to remain frequently involved in one another’s lives by maintaining contact in person, by phone and via text. Moreover, parental involvement may spill into support for young adult children via tangible material assistance (e.g. finances or a place to live) and via non-tangible assistance (e.g. advice and emotional support). Young adults may reciprocate support to some extent, but in Western cultures, support usually flows ‘downstream’ from the parents to the grown children (Fingerman et al., 2011; Kohli, 1999). Rates of contact between young adults and their parents have increased dramatically over the past few decades. Studies in US in the 21st century find that over half of young adults (55 per cent) report contact with parents – by phone, in person, by text – daily or nearly every day and another 25 per cent report contact several times a week (Arnett & Schwab, 2012; Fingerman, Cheng, Tighe et al., 2012). Similarly, data from the Netherlands revealed that nearly three quarters (72 per cent) of young people had at least weekly phone contact with parents and nearly as many saw them in person that often (Bucx et al., 2008). In the 1980s, data from a variety of sources indicated that contact between adults and parents occurred less frequently; just over half of parents reported any type of contact with a grown child once a week or more often (Fingerman, Cheng, Tighe et al., 2012). Although frequent contact is common between adults and parents today, some adults do not have contact with their parents. Estrangement is most likely to occur for fathers who are divorced from the child’s mother or who never married the child’s mother. In a recent national study of adults aged 24 to 32 in the US, 20 per cent lacked a father figure or did not have contact with their father, whereas only 5 per cent of these young adults reported being estranged from, or lacking, a mother. Moreover, most grown
Sciences, 61, P152–P160. Fingerman, K.L., Cheng, Y-P., Kim, K. et al. (in press). Parental involvement with college students in Germany, Hong Kong, Korea, and the United States. Journal of Family Issues. Fingerman, K.L., Cheng, Y-P., Cichy, K.E. et al. (2013). Help with ‘strings attached’: Offspring perceptions that middle-aged parents offer conflicted support. Journals of Gerontology:
children have contact with at least one parent; only 2 per cent of these adults were estranged from both parents (Hartnett et al., 2014). ‘In my first year of graduate school, a professor asked For the most part, then, me to help interview adults of different ages. Eightythe ties appear to be robust year-olds told stories that were so interesting, I was and thriving. Increased contact hooked on adult development. For the next 15 years, between adults and parents I studied older parents and their middle-aged children reflects several societal trends, as a faculty member in Human Development & Family the most obvious being Sciences, a multidisciplinary department including advances in communication. psychologists with a focus on the context of family life New technologies such as eand development. mail, texting and Skype make In 2008 my research team started a study of threecommunication between generation families that included young adult children parties easy, accessible and The global recession hit within weeks of the initial data practically free. But these collection, and we were fortunate enough to interview all formats of communication the family members again in 2013. The data from the have not supplanted the more middle-aged parents and the young adult children were pedestrian telephone and inintriguing. Patterns of involvement, emotional qualities person contact: it’s only just of the ties, and support exchanges seemed to be over a third of the time that sensitive to the economic and social context. It soon the contact between adults and became clear that these parent/child ties were parents occurs via newer increasing in importance, and our research focused on technologies. the implications of the ascension of intergenerational Indeed, trends in ties from there on.’ communication pre-date the saturation of communication technologies. For example, the Karen Fingerman US showed a trend of increased is a Professor at the University of contact between generations Texas at Austin prior to widespread use of kfingerman@austin.utexas.edu cellphones. Only 38 per cent of the US population reported using a cellphone in 2000, yet national data in the US reveals a trend of increasing contact between adults and their parents beginning in the early 1990s Across countries, students have more (Fingerman, Cheng, Tighe et al., 2012). frequent contact and greater involvement Increased contact between generations with their parents than non-students of also reflects changes in the nature of similar age (Attias-Donfut & Wolff, 2000; young adulthood. In the 21st century, Fingerman, Cheng, Tighe et al., 2012; young adults spend more time in Fingerman et al., 2015). Moreover, education, experience greater challenges young adults who are not married have finding jobs and delay marriage longer more frequent contact with their parents (if they marry at all) than was the case than young adults who are married. 30 or 40 years ago. Today, a much higher A prolonged period of ‘singlehood’ or proportion of young adults attend college serial relationships with different partners or another form of post–high school may raise the importance of ties to a education than in the past (Fingerman, parent during young adulthood. Cheng et al., in press; Furstenberg, 2011). Historically, adults and parents have
Psychological Sciences, 68, 902–911. Fingerman, K.L., Cheng, Y–P., Birditt, K.S. & Zarit, S.H. (2012). Only as happy as the least happy child: Multiple grown children’s problems and successes and middle-aged parents’ well-being. Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 67B, 184–193. Fingerman, K.L., Cheng, Y.P., Tighe, L. et al. (2012). Relationships between
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young adults and their parents. In A. Booth, S.L. Brown, N. Landale et al. (Eds.) Early adulthood in a family context (pp.59–85). New York: Springer. Fingerman, K.L., Cheng, Y.P., Wesselmann, E.D. et al. (2012). Helicopter parents and landing pad kids: Intense parental support of grown children. Journal of Marriage and Family, 74, 880–896.
Fingerman, K.L., Hay, E.L. & Birditt, K.S. (2004). The best of ties, the worst of ties: Close, problematic, and ambivalent social relationships. Journal of Marriage and Family, 66, 792–808. Fingerman, K.L., Kim, K., Birditt, K.S. & Zarit, S.H. (in press). The ties that bind: Middle-aged parents’ daily experiences with grown children. Journal of Marriage and Family.
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preferred separate living spaces. Dating back several centuries, parents and grown children resided in nearby dwellings or on a shared larger farm in separate households, but coresidence occurred when this was not possible (Furstenberg, 2011). Until the 1950s and 1960s, over one third of parents in Britain lived with a grown child (Grundy, 2005). Rates of co-residence decreased until the end of the 20th century, but have increased again over the past 15 years with nearly a third of young adults in Britain residing with their parents today (ONS, 2012). In the US in 2012, 32 per cent of women aged 18 to 31 co-resided with parents and 40 per cent of young men did (Fry, 2013). Moreover, in southern Europe, Rates of co-residence decreased until the end of the 20th century, but have increased again over in Spain and Italy, up to 60 per cent the past 15 years with nearly a third of young adults in Britain residing with their parents today of adults this age co-reside with parents. Cross-national differences in young adults’ ability to reside separately in co-residence across countries, the poor experience ambivalence and conflicts over from parents reflects several factors: economy generated fewer jobs for young co-residence if autonomous households (a) the availability of affordable rental adults. In addition, characteristics of the are preferred but unavailable due to housing; (b) government policies (i.e. grown child predict whether they reside economics. social welfare) assisting young adults, with a parent. Across Western countries, Support from parents to young adult as opposed to their depending solely on grown children who are unmarried, and offspring also has increased over the past parental support; (c) long-term stable particularly single parents, are more likely few decades. In Great Britain a study employment in young adulthood; and to live with their parents. Likewise, less conducted in 1994 found that nearly (d) cultural preferences for co-residence educated and younger grown children are three quarters of parents aged 60 to 69 (Newman & Aptekar, 2006). The first more likely to live with parents, as are reported giving practical help or money three factors pertain to society on the sons compared with daughters (Dykstra to grown children (Grundy, 2005). These whole and economic opportunities. et al., 2013). parents were likely to have children who The last factor is subjective and reflects Patterns of co-residence are not fully were in their thirties and forties. Parents beliefs. determined by structural factors, typically give more support to younger Regarding structural factors, nations however. Research shows southern adults (Fingerman et al., 2009) and thus, differ in policies that facilitate young European parents and grown children rates of support may be even higher. people leaving home. In northern indicate a preference for intergenerational Indeed, a recent study in the US found European countries (including Britain), co-residence (Newman & Aptekar, 2006). that 29 per cent of parents provided government safety nets assist young Studies have examined concepts such as several forms of support (e.g. advice, adults who are pursuing education or familialism (beliefs that offspring should tasks, emotional support, who are unemployed. Apartments and put family ahead of their individual companionship), several times a week or rental housing are typically available. preferences) and filial obligation to assist every day to a grown child (Fingerman, Southern European nations have few parents; cross-cultural and cross-ethnic Cheng, Wesselmann et al., 2012). During government assistance programmes, patterns suggest that behaviours typically the 1980s fewer than half of parents and rental housing is difficult to obtain. align with these beliefs. It is worth noting, reported providing advice on a monthly Clearly, ebbs and flows of the economy though, that despite potential benefits of basis and fewer than a third provided affect parent–child ties. For example, the co-residence during difficult times, practical help every month. Thus, parents recent Great Recession also saw an uptick parents and grown children may today provide dramatically more support
Fingerman, K.L., Kim, K., Tennant, P.S. et al. (2015). Intergenerational support in a daily context. The Gerontologist [Advance online publication]. doi:10.1093/geront/gnv035 Fingerman, K L., Miller, L.M., Birditt, K.S. & Zarit, S.H. (2009). Giving to the good and the needy: Parental support of grown children. Journal of Marriage and Family, 71, 1220–1233. Fingerman, K.L., Pitzer, L.M., Chan, W. et
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al. (2011). Who gets what and why? Help middle-aged adults provide to parents and grown children. Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, 66B, 87–98. Fry, R. (2013). A rising share of young adults live in their parents' home. Pew Research Center, Social & Demographic Trends. Retrieved from tinyurl.com/lvqd4y8 Furstenberg, F.F. (2011). The recent
transformation of the American family. In M.J. Carlson & P. England (Eds.) Social class and changing families in an unequal America (pp.192–220). Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Grundy, E. (2005). Reciprocity in relationships. British Journal of Sociology, 56, 233–255. Hartnett, C.S., Birditt, K.S. & Fingerman, K.L. (2014). Without the ties that bind:
Young adults who lack contact with parent figures. Manuscript submitted for publication. Kohli, M. (1999). Private and public transfers between generations: Linking the family and the state. European Societies, 1, 81–104. Newman, K. & Aptekar, S. (2006, August). Sticking around: Delayed departure from the parental nest Western Europe. University of Pennsylvania:
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to their grown children than they received from their own parents at a similar age. This perhaps reflects the changing economic and cultural factors described previously. In addition, parents assist grown children today for three principal reasons: (a) the child experiences life problems or crises (e.g. unemployment, divorce, a health problem); (b) the child has potential for future success (e.g. pursuing education, raising a grandchild); or (c) during the course of everyday interactions, support occurs with or without intention (e.g. parents offer advice or emotional support during daily interactions: Fingerman et al., 2009; Fingerman et al., 2015). Moreover, when parents feel more affection for a grown child, they also provide more help (Fingerman et al., 2011). Thus, for the most part, parental support occurs in the context of strong bonds to further the child’s future or because the parents and grown children enjoy one another’s company. Nonetheless, parents and children alike may experience discomfort regarding parental support. Popular media in the US refer to ‘helicopter parents’ who hover over their grown children, orchestrating their every move; and Danish psychologist Bent Hougaard coined the term ‘curling parents’ to refer to those who insist on sweeping everything that may get in the way of their child, their own polished stone. European media refer to ‘Mama’s boys’ in Italy, and ‘failed fledgling’ in Britain. These disparaging terms reflect the sentiment that parental support is smothering young adults, and that dependency among grown children reflects weakness and failure. University professors tell anecdotes of parents calling to request a change in a student’s grade and employers indicate that parents arrive at a child’s job interview. Despite widespread stories of this type, however, such events do not seem pervasive or common occurrences. In fact, parents and grown children
MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood policy brief. Office for National Statistics (2012). Young adults living with parents in the UK, 2011. Retrieved from tinyurl.com/c38fwyf Office for National Statistics (2013). Chapter 5 – Marriage and cohabitation (General Lifestyle Survey overview – A report on the 2011 General Lifestyle
alike view the new levels of parental involvement askance. In a recent study, when parents provided support to grown children several times a week, the parents and children rated that support as ‘too much’ (Fingerman, Cheng, Wesselmann et al., 2012). Another study examined grown children’s perceptions of whether their parents provided support in a manner that was intrusive, demeaning, or that required repayment (i.e. ‘help with strings attached’). When parents viewed their children as too dependent and believed the children should be more autonomous, the grown children perceived parental support as having strings attached (Fingerman et al., 2013). In other words, expectations of autonomy between generations established in the mid to late 20th century persist into the 21st century, despite common (and desired) changes in actual behaviours in the relationship.
Relationships between adults and their parents and wellbeing Given the high involvement between adults and parents, their relationships may affect each party’s wellbeing. Classic psychological theories (e.g. Freud, Erikson) argued that the initial relationship with a parent sets a course for individual differences in psychological functioning in adulthood. Subsequent empirical research has not established links between parental behaviours in preschool and adult outcomes. In fact, relationships between adults and parents may show considerable variability in quality over time. Longitudinal studies that have followed children and parents from early childhood, find continuity over short periods of time (i.e. a few years), but not from birth into adulthood (Belsky et al., 2001). Nonetheless, qualities of the tie to parents and grown children may affect each party’s wellbeing at that time. In adulthood, grown children and their parents have three types of emotional experiences in their ties: (a) positive
Survey). Retrieved from tinyurl.com/nwnxjze Pillemer, K., Munsch, C.L., Fuller–Rowell, T. et al. (2012). Ambivalence toward adult children: Differences between mothers and fathers. Journal of Marriage and Family, 74, 1101–1113. Umberson, D., Pudrovska, T. & Reczek, C. (2010). Parenthood, childlessness, and well-being. Journal of Marriage and Family, 72, 612–629.
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feelings of affection; (b) conflict and negative feelings such as worry, disappointment, or irritation; and (c) ambivalent or mixed feelings. This latter category, ambivalence, is pervasive between young adults and their parents (Fingerman et al., 2004). Young adults and their parents typically report feelings of affection for one another, particularly given the high levels of involvement and support that characterise these ties. Yet, their relationships may be complicated by the sense that the other party is intrusive or demanding, disappointing or worrisome. It is not surprising that relationships that involve such cohesion also involve negative feelings. Conflict is inherent to other close ties. After all, psychologists typically examine how marital partners resolve conflicts (rather than asking whether such conflicts exists). Nonetheless, researchers have only recently begun to examine ambivalent feelings between adults and parents. Ambivalence may arise in part because parents find it difficult to accept societal changes that have shifted their children’s timetable compared with their own young adulthood. Parents (particularly fathers) typically report ambivalence towards grown children who have not achieved markers associated with adulthood, such as completion of education, marriage and securing a job (Pillemer et al., 2012). In fact, one study found that when grown children reported that they were highly invested in their own career and their own children, their parents reported less ambivalence (Fingerman et al., 2006). In essence, even though their grown child may have less time for them, parents derive satisfaction from knowing their grown children are faring well. For grown children, concerns about parental health remain a key issue in the experience of ambivalence, even when parents are relatively healthy (Fingerman et al., 2006). Young adults may worry about their own ability to care for parents in the future. These concerns may reflect worries about losing the parent or about caring for the parent, or may even serve as part of the recognition that parents are human and have weaknesses. The key question remaining is whether parent–child ties affect each party’s wellbeing. Parents are sensitive to their grown children’s successes, but even more so their grown children’s problems (Fingerman, Cheng, Birditt et al., 2012; Umberson et al., 2010). Parents report distress and poor psychological wellbeing when their children experience life crises such as a divorce, unemployment or a
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health issue. In fact, the nature of the is largely atheoretical. A sparse problem does not seem to alter these longitudinal literature following effects. Parents do not appear to early parent–child ties into differentiate between problems that adulthood suggests only modest might be attributed to the child’s associations in relationship lifestyle (e.g. drug addiction) and qualities, and then only over problems that seem due to outside shorter periods of time. A few events (e.g. victim of a crime). These studies of late life have examined patterns appear to support the truism attachment styles in late life that, ‘a parent is only as happy as caregiving, but findings have their least happy child’ (Fingerman, been mixed. In sum, parent–child Cheng, Birditt et al., 2012). ties in adulthood warrant Parents may show complementary theoretical attention. distress to a child’s problems for a Likewise, the literature does variety of reasons. The parent may not adequately reflect clinical ‘A parent is only as happy as their least happy child’ worry about the child’s future and the phenomena involving adults and implications of the problem for how parents. Research consistently finds the child will fare in the long run. benefits for family members who Parents also may view their grown receive support. When grown children invest in the child for decades before the children’s success or failures as a incur problems, studies have documented children are launched. Children, on the reflection on their own job as parents. parental empathetic distress but have not other hand, seek to differentiate from Further, parents typically step in and try noted difficulties for the grown children parents, even in an era when bonds endure to help their grown children who have stemming from parental involvement. Yet, and are strong. Nonetheless, grown problems (Fingerman et al., 2009); popular media suggest parental overchildren appear to benefit from parental providing this help may be draining, involvement is detrimental. In 2011 the involvement. When parents offer young particularly if the parent cannot resolve Atlantic Monthly carried a cover story adults support on a weekly basis or more the problem. Parents also may question written by a therapist who argued her often, the grown children report greater whether it is normal for grown children young adult clients suffered narcissism, life satisfaction and better adjustment, to be dependent on their parents. Parents low confidence, and psychological controlling for factors that elicit that who perceive their children as needing maladjustment due to parental oversupport (Fingerman, Cheng, Wesselmann more help than other adults of involvement. The factors that determine et al., 2012). That is, if two young adults comparable age report poorer wellbeing when parent–child ties are beneficial and are unemployed and one receives parental (Fingerman, Cheng, Wesselmann et al., when they are toxic warrant research support (but the other does not), the 2012); it may be the case that these attention. adult receiving parental support will fare parents view themselves as remiss in In sum, ties between young better. Thus, parents have the opportunity raising children who are less competent adults and parents appear to be thriving. to improve their child’s wellbeing even than others of comparable age. Recent trends in marital patterns suggest under adverse circumstances. Moreover, relationships with children intergenerational ties will continue to who suffer problems often become intensify. In Great Britain in 2011 only Conclusion strained and involve ambivalence (Birditt 52 per cent of men and 49 per cent of In the 21st century it is clear that et al., 2010). Poor-quality ties with grown women were married, and rates of parent–child ties typically are highly children are associated with poorer marriage are on the decline (ONS, 2013). involved, functional and serve as sources parental mental health (Umberson et al., The likelihood of cohabitating with a of support. The research literature 2010). In fact, a recent study of parents’ partner has increased, but these ties are stemming from the 1960s has focused on daily experiences with grown children less stable than marital ties. Thus, generalised trends in these ties, with less found that relationship quality played a increasingly, relationships with parents research on psychological aspects of the key role in daily distress. When parents and children are the most important ties beyond relationship quality and experienced poorer-quality relationships enduring ties in individuals’ lives. The wellbeing. In early life, ties between with grown children, they were more tendency to lose touch with a father may parents and children show systematic likely to report that the child got on their increase in the future as well because individual differences, as evidenced by more children are born to mothers who nerves or irritated them, or that they research examining attachment theory have tenuous relationships with the worried or thought about problems with (secure, insecure, ambivalent). Likewise, child’s father than in the past. that child on a daily basis. These negative the adolescence literature regarding For individuals who have a bond to experiences were associated with more parenting styles has shown how distinct a parent, however, the ties typically negative mood on that day and the patterns of parenting (e.g. authoritative, are highly rewarding. Current trends of following day (Fingerman, Kim et al., in authoritarian) are associated with frequent contact and supportive ties may press). Grown children’s problems and adolescent outcomes. Yet, the literature continue. Today, the downside of these poor-quality relationships may therefore regarding adult parent–child ties has ties is ambivalence associated with generate a cascade of daily and long-term primarily examined continuous changing norms regarding whether it is psychological consequences for parents. phenomena, rather than discrete all right to have such strong ties and for Grown children also may be sensitive categories of parent–child ties. Recent parents to continue to help grown to qualities of ties with their parents, but studies in the family science literature children. But as values come to align with to a lesser extent. A vast research literature have begun to use latent class analysis to the presence of strong intergenerational shows that parents are more invested in generate typologies of parent–child ties in bonds, parents and children alike may grown children than the reverse. Parents the US, Europe and Asia, but this research benefit. view their children as their legacy and
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Imagining the impossible before breakfast Image/words by Jan Cosgrave & Dalena Van Heugten (University of Oxford) Dissociative symptoms include phenomena that encompass excessive daydreaming, memory problems, severe absentmindedness, and impairments and discontinuities in perceptions of the self, identity and the environment. An example would be ‘zoning out’ a lot, or, in more severe cases, not recognising yourself in the mirror. People scoring high on dissociation also tend to have more rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. REM is a sleep phase that has been hypothesised as an ideal state for hyperassociative connections to be made. We wished to investigate whether such connections could predict enhanced creativity during the day. To test this, we conducted a creative photo contest where participants took one photo per day for five consecutive days, based on specific daily themes
(consisting of single words). The participants also completed daily measures of dissociation and a short sleep diary. The photos and their captions were ranked by two professional photographers and two clinical psychologists based on creativity, originality, bizarreness and quality. As predicted, we found that dissociation predicted a higher ranking on creativity when taking a photo that day. Displayed here are the photographs for our winner in chronological order for each of the themes: three; green; freedom; desire; and home. This work has recently been published in Frontiers in Psychology (tinyurl.com/zjzyedz) for highlighting an innovative approach to both studying creativity and informing dissociative symptomatology.
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From riots to crowd safety In the first of an occasional series, John Drury describes his pathway to impact
ne day, in March 1990, when I was (Reicher, 1984). I loved the way that in in my first year as an undergraduate this paper Steve not only outlined a new student, I heard on the radio model in which crowd behaviour was breaking news of a huge riot taking place understood as meaningful and identityin London. This seemed very important based, but also put the boot hard into for two reasons. The first reason was that those established theories that politically many people seemed to think pathologised the crowd – from Le Bon’s that riots were irrelevant, ineffective and ‘submergence’ to Zimbardo’s deeven counter-productive for any cause. Yet individuation theory. I remember wishing the significance of the poll tax riot for that I had written that paper. But I also both the anti-poll tax movement and the felt excited by the fact that the topic of legitimacy of the Conservative riots could be the focus of academic study. government’s ‘flagship’ policy soon The poll tax riot was the subject of my became evident. The movement final-year empirical project. I wanted to maintained its momentum and an emulate the St Pauls study. But after announcement was made only a year starting my PhD under Steve Reicher’s or so later that the hated tax was to be abolished. The event therefore had a profound effect on the political landscape and certainly galvanised many of those who wanted change. The second reason why the riot was important was that I had just been introduced to the topic of crowd behaviour on my degree course. I was in the middle of reading the relevant literature when the riot took place. In particular, I had just read Steve Reicher’s paper on the St Pauls riot which was Psychological changes within an event could help explain why some crowd events changed over time – from published in the European peaceful to conflictual, for example Journal of Social Psychology
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references
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Carter, H., Drury, J., Rubin, G.J. et al. (2015). Applying crowd psychology to develop recommendations for the management of mass decontamination. Health Security. 13(1), 45–53. Drury, J., Cocking, C. & Reicher, S. (2009). Everyone for themselves? A comparative study of crowd solidarity amongst emergency survivors. British Journal of Social Psychology,
48, 487–506. Drury, J., Novelli, D. & Stott, C. (2013). Psychological disaster myths in the perception and management of mass emergencies. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 43, 2259–2270. Drury, J., Novelli, D. & Stott, C. (2015). Managing to avert disaster: Explaining collective resilience at an outdoor music event. European Journal of Social Psychology, 4,
supervision, the research emphasis shifted away from the limits of crowd behaviour to issues of change and empowerment, both within and beyond the crowd. On the one hand, crowds express people’s social identities: the contours of crowd behaviour reflected people’s identitybased understandings of self and world. This was what the St Pauls study had shown so vividly. But, on the other hand, crowd events could also alter the understandings and identities of the participants. People became empowered (or disempowered). The boundaries of the group sometimes changed. And sometime the very issue that the protest was about changed within the event – for example, from student fees to the right to protest itself. These psychological changes within an event could help explain why some crowd events changed over time – from peaceful to conflictual, for example. They also helped explain why people sometimes were transformed as individuals through their experiences in crowd events and became ‘different’ people. We felt that we had some success in displacing irrationalism in the study of crowd conflict, and re-configuring the field as now part of collective action. We wanted to extend some of the ideas to another crowd domain. Paralleling the ‘mob mentality’ of irrationalist account of riots, notions of ‘mass panic’ pathologised collectivity in emergencies. And like the notion of the ‘mad mob’, these ideas were pervasive. We were often asked to comment on cases of ‘crowd panic’, but didn’t yet have the systematic research evidence to substantiate the arguments we were making. Our aim therefore was to apply some of the social identity principles to the domain of mass emergency behaviour.
An emergency plan that changed course Our original research plan was to compare examples of two types of emergency evacuations – one in which
533–547. Dynes, R.R. (2003). Finding order in disorder: Continuities in the 9-11 response. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, 21, 9–23. Reicher, S.D. (1984). The St Pauls riot: An explanation of the limits of crowd action in terms of a social identity model. European Journal of Social Psychology, 14, 1–21.
Reicher, S. & Drury, J. (2011). Collective identity, political participation and the making of the social self. In A. Azzi, X. Chryssochoou, B. Klandermans, & B. Simon (Eds.) Identity and participation in culturally diverse societies: A multidisciplinary perspective (pp.158–176). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
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the crowd ‘panicked’ and one in which the evacuation was orderly – and then see if social identity processes explained the difference. The hypothesis was that in the orderly crowd there was a shared identity, whereas in the ‘panicking’ crowd, there wasn’t. However, several things occurred that changed this plan somewhat and led us into slightly unexpected directions. First, once we started the research we struggled to find many instances of ‘panic’ to study. We advertised in order to recruit interviewees who had been involved in emergency evacuations. But most of them described at least some instances of cooperation and order emerging in the evacuating crowd. We couldn’t find clear instances of crowd ‘panic’. Second, I discovered a rich literature on mass emergencies and alternative approaches to understanding them. Most of this literature wasn’t in social psychology, but some of the ideas could be extended to develop a social psychological analysis that applied specifically to crowds. Some of the best conceptual and empirical critiques of the concept of ‘panic’ I read at this time were in papers by Norris Johnson, Charles Fritz and Jonathan Sime. And then, following 9/11, there emerged a powerful critical analysis of the meaning and implications of psychological vulnerability versus resilience in emergencies; the arguments of Russell Dynes, Simon Wessely and Frank Furedi were particularly inspiring. One of the exciting things about these arguments was the way they showed that notions of collective vulnerability – as in the discourse of ‘mass panic’ – were not simply an (incorrect) description of behaviour, but operated as the justification for policies and practices of control and coercion that could undermine ‘natural’ tendencies to resilience. As has been argued by discourse analysts (another early inspiration), social constructions do things. There was one experience in particular that brought many of these issues together, and that was the 7 July London bombings in 2005. Chris Cocking, Steve Reicher, Andy Burton, Damian Schofield and I were presenting the research on mass emergency behaviour at the Royal Society Summer exhibition in London. On the day of the bombing, Chris and I were at Waterloo East tube station on our way to the exhibition venue. (Somewhat presciently, one of our exhibits was a simulation of an evacuation of London tube station during a fire.) Just before 9am, we were on the busy platform waiting for a train when we
were evacuated. At the time, we didn’t know that there had been terrorist attacks. We followed the grumbling crowd making their way out of the station, annoyed by the inconvenience. The rest of our journey across London was by foot. Some hours later, we heard about soot-covered people emerging from tube stations and then about the deaths and injuries. As well as the shock and sadness for those who had been killed, I realised that it was important to try to look at how survivors behaved during the event. Since the crowd on the tube is one of the best examples of a crowd lacking a shared identity, then we might have expected disordered selfish behaviour as people affected by the bombing tried to evacuate. And yet our preliminary findings based on interviews with survivors of other emergencies led to a hypothesis that was actually closer to some of the ideas we developed in the collective action research: identities can change in crowds. Soon there were many detailed reports of cooperation, orderly queuing and even self-sacrifice among survivors of the bombings that made any notion of ‘mass panic’ during 7 July impossible to sustain. People shared water with each other, they tied tourniquets, and they tried to support each other emotionally as well as practically. In most cases, this support took place amongst commuters who were complete strangers to each other. When we interviewed survivors and analysed their accounts plus the huge amount of secondary data produced in the wake of the event (including quotes from witnesses in media reports, personal accounts and detailed statements in the London Assembly report), it gave support to the idea that survivors had shifted from seeing themselves simply as ‘me’ (in relation to other commuters) to ‘us’ (the group of people affected by the explosion). And this strong sense of ‘we-ness’ was associated with cooperation and concern for others. The theoretical focus in the research on mass emergency behaviour then became this question of shift or change in social identities. Some crowds affected by emergencies already have one (or more) shared identities – the crowds of supporters at the Hillsborough disaster is an example. But in these cases the meaning of the ‘we’ seems to change, along with the boundaries. Liverpool fans we spoke to said the crowd identity was no longer a matter of team allegiance but
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Meet the author ‘My Impact Case Study – submitted to the British Psychological Society’s portal at www.bps.org.uk/about-impact – seeks to recognise and understand collective resilience in crowds of survivors. The research covered in the case study was carried out with my colleagues Steve Reicher (University of St Andrews), Chris Cocking (Brighton University), Damian Schofield (State University of New York), Andy Burton (Nottingham Trent University), Paul Langston (University of Nottingham), David Novelli (University of Hertfordshire), and Clifford Stott (University of Leeds), and so this journey includes them too. The Impact Case Study is concerned with the collective psychology of emergencies and disasters. My principal focus has been how these events affect (or sometimes create) crowds. In fact, it is crowds that fascinate me, and the work on emergencies and disasters was an extension of research on a different type of crowd event. Here I explain how that fascination began.’
John Drury is a Reader in Social Psychology at the University of Sussex J.Drury@sussex.ac.uk
a common ‘humanity’. Other crowds, like those at transport hubs, shopping centres and so on, are what Steve Reicher has dubbed physical crowds (Reicher & Drury, 2011): they are simply people in the same place at the same time. But, under certain conditions, they can become psychological crowds (‘us’, ‘we’), something that has a number of important implications for how one perceives and behaves towards others in the crowd. Shared understandings, trust and the motivation to help all seem to increase when this shift occurs. Of course some crowd evacuations are disorderly and characterised by individualistic behaviour, but many more exhibit this emergent sociality that serves to protect people within the crowd.
‘Resilience’ So instead of ‘panic’ another concept and terminology was needed. ‘Resilience’ seemed to be a good way a way of talking about adaptive crowd behaviour in emergencies, but what did that mean in this context? In many definitions,
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‘resilience’ means the preservation of an existing entity in the face of adversity; but the psychological crowd was created not preserved in the cases we looked at. In many definitions, ‘resilience’ refers to a disposition or attribute; but how could that be the case for a fleeting phenomenon like a crowd forming in an emergency? Moreover, just as notions of psychosocial vulnerability (such as public ‘panic’) have been used to justify policies we might see as coercive and illegitimate – as Dynes (2003) had argued, for example – discourses of ‘resilience’ too have been used in various ways not all of them beneficial. Notions of resilience are evident in policies like the ‘Big Society’ and serve to justify cuts to services; and in the Second World War a similar notion was implied in discredited propaganda such as ‘Britain can take it’ [see also the forthcoming Edgar Jones ‘Looking back’ article on citizens at war]. But what interested me about notions of resilience when applied to ‘communities’ in UK policy since 9/11, including in the new civil contingencies framework, was that the approach is something of a double-edged sword for the state. On the one hand, the need for ‘community resilience’ is now clearly recognised, in the sense that the government acknowledges that the professional responders will not reach the emergency in time or in sufficient numbers and therefore the public must deal with the emergency themselves – at least to some degree. On the other hand, the more independent, empowered and active these ‘communities’ are, the more there is the possibility that they might develop in all sorts of unpredicted directions and do things the government hadn’t anticipated or desired. It’s also interesting to note in this context that the government’s guidance on ‘community resilience’ (2011) lists crowds (‘communities of circumstance’) alongside geographical communities and others as types of ‘community’. In a sense, therefore, the fashion for ‘resilience’ at the time was an opportunity to legitimise autonomous action in emergencies as a good thing, taking advantage of that double-edged sword. Moreover, in psychology there were other ways of talking and thinking about ‘resilience’ (such as ‘bouncing forward’ instead of simply ‘bouncing back’), so I chose the term, prefixed by ‘collective’, as a way of referring to a particular set of behaviours and perceptions in order to create a new way of talking about crowd psychology in emergencies. Thus we
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defined collective resilience as ‘the way a shared identification allows groups [and crowds] of survivors to express solidarity and cohesion, and thereby to coordinate and draw upon collective sources of support and other practical resources, to deal with adversity’ (Drury et al., 2009, p.502).
Talking to practitioners At this point, there was another factor that went to shape the work and led indirectly to the impacts described in the case study. One of the things I liked about academia was the fact that we can study things that don’t necessarily have a use. I had certainly not sought to translate the research on rebellious crowds into something ‘useful’. It was important knowledge for its own sake, to my view. Yet with the research on mass emergencies there was suddenly an applied interest and a demand for the ‘implications’ of the work. People asked me what our findings meant for practice. Chris Cocking, who was the research fellow on the evacuations research, had a different perspective from mine: he was impatient with academia and was more interested in producing knowledge that could be used. So together we began to draw out the implications of the findings of our research for emergency preparedness and response, such as the importance of communication and trust in relations between responders and crowd. This was at a time before the Impact agenda of both the Research Excellence Framework and the ESRC were quite as prominent as they are now, but we thought of various strategies for dissemination, the main one being an accessible free report on the research, which we distributed to over 35 organisations. Following this, I got a number of invitations to speak to practitioner events, and I found I enjoyed these. One of these invitations turned out to be significant in terms of the further development and application of the research. It was an event organised by the Joint Royal Colleges Ambulance Liaison Committee, which I hadn’t heard of before, and I’m not sure how they found my name. I spoke about the London bombings research and our ideas about crowds and resilience. These interested Richard Williams who was at the event and who was working for the Department of Health Emergency Preparedness Division on the new NATO guidance on psychosocial care for people affected by emergencies and disasters. The evidence and the concepts we were developing
fitted well with the aims of the stepped model of care he was putting into the guidance, which suggested that while a minority need psychiatric care, the majority have the capacities to care for themselves and recover without expert intervention. Our work showed that group processes in crowds – including crowds of strangers – was key to that. The meeting was extremely fortuitous, for Richard, unusually, was a psychiatrist sympathetic to ideas in social psychology and whose specialism was in mental health strategy in emergency response. He had the interest and the vision to translate some of the social identity ideas into some of the Department of Health guidance. Through Richard Williams and his colleague in the Department of Health, Verity Kemp, I made contact with Richard Amlôt in what was then the Health Protection Agency (now Public Health England). There was one unusual type of emergency scenario I wanted to study, and it was the same type of emergency for which PHE colleagues were seeking an
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combining crowd behaviour hypotheses on the role of social identity with investigations into public–responder interactions. Holly Carter (PHE) was the PhD student who carried out the research. She demonstrated that communications from the responders could improve the efficiency of the decon process through legitimising the responders and enhancing identification between them and public. Through her interventions, the public became active participants in the decon process rather than passive recipients of care (Carter et al., 2015). Holly’s work is now starting to transform practices not only in the Fire and Rescue Service in the UK, who are changing their training to include the role of perceived legitimacy and shared social identity – and hence emphasising ‘soft skills’, but also organisations in the US who manage CBRN emergency decon incidents.
Crowd safety and the future
Crowds can not only respond adaptively in disasters but can actually contribute to preventing disasters
academic partner for research: mass decontamination of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) incidents. The perceived threat of ‘dirty bombs’ from Al Qaeda meant that CBRN mass decon was a government priority at that time. Emergency procedures in such events were unlike those in any other emergency, where the public is expected simply to leave the scene, for in these events those affected needed to shower in specially designed tents to prevent the toxic agents spreading. This was obviously a very delicate operation for the fire service who would be leading the procedure, but all the research and drills had neglected the psychological side – the stress, the question of dignity, communication and the relationship between responders and public. Richard Williams, Richard Amlôt and James Rubin (King’s College London) and I designed a programme of research
I was encouraged by my then Head of School to run a continuing professional development (CPD) course on crowd behaviour commercially for relevant professionals. This seemed like an interesting thing to do as way of engaging with interested end-users, but there was a problem. My university (Sussex) did not award credits for the CPD I ran, which would limit its attractiveness. The resolution of this problem led indirectly to further research and further impact. I was aware that Buckinghamshire New University was running crowd safety management courses, so I approached Chris Kemp who was Dean there to see if Bucks could offer accreditation for my course. But he had a better suggestion: that I run a version of the CPD course as a module on their crowd safety management degree programme. Running the module at Bucks on top of my Sussex duties means extra work, but has brought me into contact with many interesting people involved in crowd safety management in the live events industry. Many of these run stewarding and security companies and pass on some of the ideas from my course to the people they train themselves. Running the Bucks course made me think more carefully about how to present the research in a way that these professionals could understand and use – something I am still working on. The first part of this ‘translation’ work has been to start to show how beliefs about crowd ‘panic’ rationalise crowd safety management practices that have been shown to produce the very anxiety and
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disorganisation in the crowd that the managers seek to avoid (Drury et al., 2013). The second part, more provocative, has been to show that crowd behaviour based on social identity processes can produce the crowd selfregulation, mutual social support and spontaneous coordination we gloss as ‘safety’ and ‘resilience’ (Drury et al., 2015). Put differently, the research had sought to show that crowds can not only respond adaptively in disasters but can actually contribute to preventing disasters when the professionals themselves are overwhelmed. This dialogue with crowd safety professionals in the live events industry is my current focus and it is where I see the impact of this work in the future. Crowd safety managers and others are becoming more professionalised and seek accredited training. That training, and the official guidance used in the industry, is increasingly informed by scientific research. This impact work is about more than emergencies – it’s also about those crowd events that pass off normally. When they manage these events, crowd safety professionals operate with beliefs about crowd psychology, even if they are not fully conscious of them. In my ongoing dialogue with these groups, my role has been to help them to reflect on their beliefs and to give them the latest research findings on how those beliefs impact on crowd behaviour. I still think it’s crucial to hold on to the idea of pure research, in these Impactagenda driven times. I continue to do research on collective action, and currently have three PhD students working in this area: Sara Vestergren, Patricio Saavedra Morales and Atalanti Evripidou. For me, this work essentially advances theory and contributes to the accumulation of knowledge. It is part of the wider body of work that challenges pathologising accounts of collectives, but it will not be part of an Impact Case Study. (I don’t get many requests from activists asking me how we can enhance crowd empowerment, but I’d be happy to try to help them if I did get such an approach!) It’s important that we don’t expect everyone in our Departments to produce an Impact Case Study and that we continue to value pure research. It just so happens that I’ve been lucky in choosing a research topic – crowds in emergencies – that has practical implications that I actually enjoy drawing out. Talking to practitioners – like the stewards at Roskilde Festival that I met last week – and seeing them get excited by the research is one of the most rewarding parts of my job.
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INTERVIEW
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‘This is not McMindfulness’ Edo Shonin (Nottingham Trent University) talks with Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of mindfulness-based stress reduction
hy do you think mindfulness is W growing in popularity within psychology? There has been a kind of explosion of interest around mindfulness that’s actually been going on for years but it’s reached the point where it’s kind of like – not just the big bang but the inflation of the big bang. I think there are a lot of reasons for it. One is the momentum in the science that’s built up over the years around mindfulness. So if you look at the plot of the number of papers in the medical and scientific literature over the past 30–35 years, it unfolds at a very low level during the 80s and right into the late 90s. And then it starts to rise and through the early 2000s, it went higher and higher and now it’s almost going straight up so that [there were] over 700 papers in 2014 alone on mindfulness, and that’s not counting some of the kind of mindfulness approaches like ACT and DBT. That’s one thing that’s driving it. Another is that the media has gotten a hold of it in a way where, you know, my work was the cover story of Time magazine in February of 2014. Then there was CBS [news] 60 minutes with Anderson Cooper who did this thing in December. And so in 2015, Oprah Winfrey did an hour’s conversation on her big programme with me about mindfulness. You know many of the people see these things in the United States and that drives it. Even internationally, I have just spent a number of days giving talks… Amsterdam was like sold out at 950 people, Belgium was sold out at 1500 people. Paris was sold out at 1700 people … and tomorrow night in London will be sold out too. You have defined mindfulness using words such as ‘non-judgemental moment-to-moment awareness’. What exactly does this statement mean? First of all let me simply say that we get almost no training in our education around awareness at all… It is in some sense trivialised and ignored how powerful the human faculty for awareness
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aware of what is unfolding from moment to moment… I am also making a big distinction between judging, which, in the way I am using the term, has to do with black-and-white thinking – I like this and I don’t like that, that’s good, this is bad – and discernment, which is what you are talking about, which is more the kind of operation of wisdom where you can see the subtleties… the thousand shades of grey between black and white, which is absolutely essential to and part and parcel of the cultivation of mindfulness. If you read that definition and you don’t know anything about it, you might ask well why the hell would anybody want to do that – ‘pay attention on purpose in the present moment nonjudgementally’? And you will notice in the definition I don’t give a reason for why one would do that. Again that’s part of the koan, in some sense it’s part of what’s left unspoken which has a real depth to it. But you could say, if you wanted a reason for doing it, it’s in the service of self-understanding and the cultivation of wisdom and compassion.
is. So what meditation practice in general does and mindfulness specifically is to intentionally cultivate access to awareness, intimacy with awareness. It is not that we have to set up awareness, it is actually already fully developed. What we need to develop is moment-to-moment access to it. Why moment-to-moment? Well that’s really the only moment we are ever alive. But when we fall into extremes of thinking and emotion and so forth, then often we are not in the present moment any more… As children we naturally have Would you say mindfulness – in the the present moment but our education manner that you teach it – is a spiritual system in some sense squeezes that out or a psychological faculty? of us in ways that are I think becoming Neither, just to be as provocative as apparent, and the consequences – the very possible. First of all, I really try to stay unwise consequences of it or damaging as far away from the word consequences of it – spiritual as possible. But are becoming much what I will say is that if better known now. “[Mindfulness] is a way push comes to shove, my So mindfulness in of being, but it requires working definition of education and practice” spiritual is what it means especially even in to be really human, which kindergarten and first would be another koan because grade and so forth, in different people would say different primary schools, is becoming a major new things about that. But if I call mindfulness vector of mindfulness in the mainstream a spiritual practice, then of course there world now. will be people that think that’s wonderful I wanted to ask about the term ‘nonand there will be an equal number of judgemental’. Don’t you think it is people, or ten times as many people, that necessary to make some sort of a think well that’s kind of religion, voodoo, judgement call to be able to really it’s nonsense, and they won’t want discriminate that which is right and to have anything to do with it. that which is wrong? That definition that you are asking me I understand that while teaching it about is actually what I call an operational you might not want to use the word definition. It is not meant to be a final spiritual. But you personally, what do definition of mindfulness. It is more like you think? a working definition of mindfulness. Here I have to say I am not a psychologist I don’t know if you know anything about by training and I have never thought of the Zen tradition [of Buddhism], but it’s what I do as a psychological intervention. meant to be something of a koan – a deep I use a different terminology. So I would question that is not completely amenable call it a mind–body intervention. We to a totally cognitive response. What the sometimes call the field that’s developed non-judgemental is pointing to is actually around this mind–body medicine. In how judgemental we are. So you could other words, the recognition that the think of it as an invitation to suspend mind and the body are not two different judging as much as we can and just be things.
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Some Buddhist teachers and scholars have criticised the popular mindfulness movement and implied that what is being taught no longer reflects the traditional meaning of mindfulness or Sati. In fact, in some papers we find the term ‘McMindfulness’ popping up. What are your views on this? First of all, that term first came out of one person’s mouth or one person’s mind. When you say it is popping up, of course, every term like that tends to just go viral on the web, but it just came out of one person’s mind. This is not McMindfulness by any stretch of the imagination. What it is – now I have to use some Buddhist terminology – it is the movement of the Dharma [the Buddhist teachings] into the mainstream of society. Buddhism really is about the Dharma – it’s about the teachings of the Buddha. You know, in various Buddhist traditions, there are actually very big differences among Buddhists about what it is all about and what the best methodologies are and all of that stuff. So Buddhist scholars love to, you know, stew with each other about the nature of all of those questions. And now that this is moving into the mainstream, I think instead of seeing that it has the potential to actually elevate humanity in profound ways that are just completely in accordance with the fundamental teachings of the Buddha about the nature of suffering and the possibility of the sort
of transformation and liberation from suffering, they get into, kind of, what I might call orthodoxies that allow them to continue to throw grenades at something that is at least 99 per cent healthy for people. Today mindfulness is described as a form of meditation in and of itself, but in the Buddhist canonical literature, mindfulness is described as a factor that regulates concentration – that is,
know, they also don’t necessarily refer to the Abhidharma understanding of mindfulness. So yes, in the Abhidharma mindfulness is a factor – it is one of the seven factors of enlightenment. But I am also using the word, just so you know, as a kind of umbrella term for the Dharma in some much larger and more universal sense. Not just as my working definition. A newspaper has described you as having done more to bring Buddhism into the mainstream than any other individual. Do you think this is an accurate statement and do you think this is a wise move? The Guardian got it wrong. I remember that headline. If they had used the word Dharma, then I wouldn’t have an argument with it – the Dharma in its most universal form. But I was not happy with that headline at all, it is just not true. And just to say the Buddha was not Buddhist. This has never been about Buddhism per se as an ‘ism’. The word Buddhism was coined by Europeans in about the 17th or 18th century, according to some scholars. So even the terminology sometimes creates a separation and orthodoxies that don’t actually exist. PRISCILLA HARMEL
In what ways do you think mindfulness as a taught programme, such as MBSR and MBCT, differs from the traditional Buddhist approach to teaching mindfulness? It partly depends on the quality of the teacher. If an instructor is well grounded in the meditation practices that underlie MBSR and MBCT then the essential difference might be zero. What is taught in Buddhist monasteries and what is practiced in Buddhist monasteries is essentially no different from what is taught in MBSR and MBCT – in the sense that one has an ethical foundation to the whole thing. In our case it is the Hippocratic Oath – first do no harm. And of course how would you know if you are doing harm unless you are cultivating mindfulness? And then, you know, it really is about the nature of the mind and the nature of what we call the self – and that’s what Buddhist practice is all about.
it is not actually a form of meditation. What are your thoughts on this? I think different traditions describe it differently. When I developed the language to describe what it is that I do – what i call mindfulness-based stress reduction or MBSR – there is no question it’s mindfulness. It’s often spoken of in the Theravada [Buddhist] tradition at least as the heart of Buddhist meditation. There was a monk in Sri Lanka named Nyanaponika Thera who was actually a German who spent his entire adult life in Sri Lanka as a Theravadan monk, and he wrote a book called the Heart of Buddhist Meditation. It came out in 1962, and I quote from it in my books; and in that book it describes mindfulness as the heart of meditation, that’s what the book is about and the satipatthana sutta. So you see I didn’t make up the idea that there is such a thing as mindfulness meditation. It is very much the case in the Theravadan tradition that it is seen that way. In the Vajrayana [Buddhist] tradition and in the Chan [Buddhist] tradition they don’t use that kind of language, but, you
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Do you have any advice for psychologists wishing to use mindfulness in applied settings – such as in clinical contexts or with children, offenders, and so on? I do have advice for them. I guess the most fundamental thing would be that mindfulness is not a concept, it is not a good idea, it is not a philosophy, and it’s not a catechism. It is a way of being but it requires practice. My strongest advice would be to actually practise it for an extended period of time and then applications for particular areas of psychology that are interested will become in some sense obvious – and from a very profound place of interest. And then they can change the field of psychology. At least I hope they will. I For much more on mindfulness, see https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/ mindful-moment
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LOOKING BACK
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Historical sex object – or undiscovered genius? John Launer challenges the image of Sabina Spielrein principally as Carl Jung’s mistress: was she one of the most innovative thinkers in 20th-century psychology?
et me take you first of all on a journey of imagination. Supposing there was a young woman who was close to Freud and Jung and suggested to them a hundred years ago that the ‘talking cure’ should be anchored in human biology. Supposing she felt that being a woman gave her a special insight into this because she understood some of the darker side of reproduction: the fear of sexual and domestic violence, seduction and abandonment, all of which she had experienced. Imagine that she decided to move from the world of psychoanalysis to join the pioneers of child development, working with Jean Piaget, becoming his psychoanalyst, and helping him to develop some of his ideas, before moving on to Moscow and teaching the giants of Russian psychology – Alexander Luria and Lev Vygotsky. Finally, let’s dream on and suppose she continued to work as a respected paediatrician, combining ideas from psychoanalysis and child development, and defending Freud publically in Russia, even after psychoanalysis had been proscribed there. If such a person had ever existed, wouldn’t you expect her to be among the best-known women in psychology in the 20th century? Wouldn’t you consider it outrageous that she had been forgotten by the time of her death in the Holocaust, and rediscovered later as an erotic sideshow, because she once had an affair with her psychiatrist? Such a woman did exist. Her name was Sabina Spielrein. In
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this article I will give a short account of the mythical version of Spielrein’s life, most recently publicised by Keira Knightley’s portrayal of her in Cronenberg’s movie A Dangerous Method. Then I will describe the different narrative I discovered when I researched her life to write my biography of her. The mythical version begins with Spielrein’s early teenage breakdown, when she ended up in hospital under the sole care of Carl Jung. He tried out psychoanalysis for the first time, using her as his test case. This was allegedly a remarkable success. She continued to see him for therapy, and this developed into a deep and lasting love affair. Freud interceded and helped them to end their affair amicably. Spielrein later became a psychoanalyst of minor distinction. After she returned to Russia, she turned into a sad and prematurely aged lady. Every single detail of this version is untrue. It is either unsupported by the documentary evidence or directly contradicted by it. It is largely based on
books written over 20 years ago, before important personal papers became available, and focusing on the two men rather than on Spielrein herself (Carotenuto, 1982; Kerr, 1993). My own interest in Spielrein started when I first read one of her articles: ‘Destruction as the Cause of Coming into Being’, published in 1912. In that paper, Spielrein tried to do what many neuroscientists and some psychoanalysts are trying to do a century later: to understand the unconscious mind in terms of Darwin’s vision of the two imperatives in life, to survive and to reproduce. I was so struck by the paper that I started to read everything I could about her. Here is the story that I discovered. Spielrein was born in 1885 into in a Jewish family in southern Russia. Both her parents and two of her brothers were violent towards her. There is a strong suggestion that her father’s violence was sexual. When she was 16, Spielrein’s sister Emilia died suddenly from typhoid. She then suffered what we would now see as a hysterical bereavement reaction: tics, grimaces, alternate laughing and crying. Her family took her to the university mental hospital in Zurich. Its director was Eugen Bleuler, one of the first people to believe mental hospitals should be therapeutic communities. One of his assistants was Carl Jung. Sabina began to calm down straight away. Within a few weeks, she was able to apply for medical school in Zurich. Jung encouraged her to join him in the hospital laboratory to do word association
Carotenuto, A. (1982). A secret symmetry: Sabina Spielrein between Freud and Jung. New York: Pantheon. Kerr, J. (1993). A most dangerous method: The story of Jung, Freud and Sabina Spielrein. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Launer, J. (2014). Sex versus survival: The life and ideas of Sabina Spielrein. London: Duckworth Overlook.
Keira Knightley in A Dangerous Mind
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tests on other patients and tried these out dissertation, she wrote the first extended on Spielrein herself. Jung later claimed in study of schizophrenic speech and its a letter to Freud that he had analysed her internal logic. It was the first ever to be while she was in hospital. There is little accepted for a doctorate using a evidence for this: he saw her only psychoanalytic approach, and the first intermittently, and the hospital notes do doctorate published in a psychoanalytic not read like an analysis at all. Several journal. It was to be another 50 years historians have also pointed out how he before psychiatrists like R.D. Laing avoided exploring abuse in the family, showed how such speech is a vital form while Bleuler insisted that her father and of communication for psychotic people. brothers should keep away from her. The following year, she wrote two more Subsequently, Jung wrote several further significant papers. One was an article on accounts of her ‘case’, but childhood fantasies they are unreliable because about pregnancy and of serious discrepancies childbirth: the first between them. systematic attempt to While she was at describe the medical school, Spielrein imagination of children. carried on assisting Jung in The other was her most the laboratory. It is clear significant paper: from her letters and diaries ‘Destruction as the that she had a massive Cause of Coming into crush on him. He started Being.’ to experiment on her by In that paper, she offering interpretations for proposed that we are her crush. She begged him caught up as human to stop. The ‘therapy’ led to beings in a tension precisely the consequence between the instinct to she had feared. Instead of survive as an individual, Sabina Spielrein curing her of an and the instinct to infatuation with him, it led reproduce. She also argued to him developing one that the reproductive with her. The affair lasted around five instinct is destructive as well as creative, months. Then his emotions changed, particularly for women, as it challenges and he confessed he had had affairs with their psychological and physical identity. several women before. Jung’s wife then She disputed Freud’s idea that the pursuit wrote an anonymous letter to Spielrein’s of pleasure underlies all our actions, mother, who threatened to shop him to proposing that only the reproductive his boss. Spielrein confronted him and drive can adequately explain all our assaulted him with a letter knife. Jung instincts. This has become a common resigned from the hospital, and started to view in modern biology and evolutionary fire off desperate letters to Freud, calling studies. Later on, Spielrein expanded on her a liar, and then blaming her for being her ideas in a letter to Jung, where she a ruthless seductress. Jung and Freud described how children seek attachment then entered into a conspiracy to with parents in the interests of their neutralise Spielrein. Both lied flagrantly survival and, ultimately, of reproduction. to each other, as well as to Spielrein. She What she said was impeccable in terms forgave both of them. She resumed erotic of the way attachment theorists now encounters with Jung, but in the end she understand how negative behaviour can convinced herself that he was a ‘Don contribute to survival and the prospect Juan’. When she qualified as a doctor in of descendants. There were some flaws in early 1911 she left Zurich for good, and Spielrein’s argument, but she understood of her own accord. that talking therapy would make no sense Spielrein then embarked on a unless it fitted a theory that had universal psychiatric career which included acceptance in the scientific world. publication of around 37 papers. She Around the beginning of the First married a doctor called Pavel Sheftel World War, Spielrein published 10 further although the marriage was never a happy articles. A paper on ‘The Mother-in-Law’ one. When the First World War broke out appears to be the first to take a feminist Pavel returned to Russia, leaving her in perspective on family relationships. An Switzerland with a baby daughter. It was article she published on the treatment of a decade before they were reunited. a boy’s phobia about monkeys is the first If the first half of Spielrein’s life known report of a child being treated for commands interest because of its personal an emotional problem through talking dramas, the second half does so because and the use of memories and associations. of her phenomenal output. For her MD In the early 1920s Spielrein joined the
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Rousseau Institute in Geneva, alongside the founders of child psychology. Jean Piaget joined the team shortly afterwards, and she took him on for a training analysis. She produced around 19 further papers there. These included articles making links across psychoanalysis, child development and linguistics. They include a paper on the origin of the words ‘Mama’ and ‘Papa,’ where she seems to have been the first psychoanalyst to write of the importance of the infant’s relationship with the mother’s breast. During this time, Spielrein was one of the pioneers of observational research into how children speak. She is likely to have been the first person to use play therapy with children. In 1923 Spielrein returned to Russia. She joined the staff of the world’s first psychoanalytic kindergarten. She influenced the young Alexander Luria and Lev Vygotsky. Later on, they both achieved fame for the ways they combined objective and subjective approaches to psychology, in the manner she introduced. Within a year or so of joining the kindergarten, Spielrein got caught in a dispute between Stalin and Trotsky about its future, and returned to her home town of Rostov. Her husband Pavel was in a relationship with another woman, and they had recently had a baby daughter – although Pavel returned to live with Sabina and Renata. A year after Sabina’s return, she and Pavel had a second daughter. Spielrein next worked in the new field of pedology – a synthesis of medical paediatrics, child psychology and developmental studies. She created her own adaptation of psychoanalytic methods to address the circumstances of the Soviet Union. She continued with observational research of children into the late 1920s. She spoke about this publicly in 1929, when psychoanalysis had virtually been banned by Stalin. She continued to work until shortly before the German invasion. In June 1942 Spielrein and her two daughters Renata and Eva were murdered by a Nazi death squad, along with almost the entire Jewish population of the city. Her terrible death makes it even more important to rediscover her legacy, and replace the fictionalised version of her as a sex object with the story of a woman of genius. I John Launer is a doctor, systemic psychotherapist and writer. He is an honorary lifetime consultant at the Tavistock Clinic and associate dean for Health Education England. johnlauner@aol.com
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